


like sweat dripping down our dirty laundry

by Idday



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Rimming, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-02-14 15:40:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idday/pseuds/Idday
Summary: Jack Eichel: Omega, and pissed off about it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [just to fall once more](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10747581) by [darkangel0410](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkangel0410/pseuds/darkangel0410). 



> PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF if you are or know someone listed here and just walk away. You will thank me later.
> 
> It's a/b/o stuff, guys. If that's not your thing, or if the somewhat dubious aspects of heat sex worry you, maybe take a pass. I promise I will write something nice and normal for these two again one day.

Jack presents two weeks before he leaves for Michigan for the first time.

It’s late enough that he thought maybe he was safe—that he would end up a beta like most of the guys on his team. And okay, sure, like pretty much every dude he knows, he would rather be an alpha, but at least as a B he would get to avoid most of the dynamics bullshit and would definitely get to skip the dynamics-based section of curriculum in the health class he’s required to take at Pi High.

And then he presents as an omega.

Most of what he remembers later about the first time is the way his head buzzes with it, strange and flu-like, and how he has to stay under a cold shower for so long he starts shivering to get away from the worst of the heat in his face and limbs and especially in his core, where he feels strange and empty and slick. How he doesn’t know what’s wrong until his mom comes home from work to find him shaking and crying on the bed instead of at hockey practice, where he should be.

She’s a nurse. She knows right away.

He remembers looking in the mirror when the worst of it has passed and hating himself a little.

A few years later, not all that much has changed.

…

Florida, as Jack could have told pretty much anybody even before his plane touched down, is a hot and humid hellscape.

At the present moment, it’s also full of Canadians, which doesn’t go a long way towards improving things.

“Are you going to be like this all week?” Hanny asks when Jack reminds him of all of this, as if he’s not wiping sweat away from his neck under his polo.

“Probably,” Jack says honestly. At least Hanny is looking forward towards something a little more enticing than Buffalo, New York at the end of this whole escapade.

Hanny shoves him, but not hard enough to make Jack do more than sway a little on his feet. He’s not fucking moving for the world, not on this boat. “What,” Jack says, when he sways back into Hanny. It’s too hot for them to be pressed together like this, but there’s something about the familiar neutrality of Hanny’s beta scent that makes Jack want to be near him regardless, especially considering their present field trip and the extreme dangers it presents to his life and limbs. “Hanny, there are swamp creatures here. This is literally a nightmare. Pinch me so I wake up, please.”

“You’re fine,” Hanny says, but not unkindly. “Buffalo’s not going to let a gator get their new star center.”

Jack opens his mouth to share his thoughts about precisely where Buffalo can shove its gator, and then the lady brings out the snake.

“What the fuck,” Jack says flatly, and takes a pointed step behind Hanny.

Across the boat, Strome starts laughing at him.

“I have a phobia,” Jack says, but not loudly enough that anybody could hear him but Hanny. “It’s a very serious and real thing.”

“I know, bud,” Hanny says, semi-sympathetically, but he also steps out of the way so that the python has a clear sightline towards Jack and therefore an extremely high likelihood of strangling him to death, which is very much not bros.

Something does touch Jack’s neck, then, and the only reason that he jumps so high is that there are reptiles crawling all over this place, and one hundred and ten percent of those want to kill Jack.

Of course, the reptile in question turns out to be Dylan Strome, but that doesn’t really make Jack feel better.

“Are you scenting me?” Jack snaps, and now exactly none of his outrage is feigned. Hanny turns his head so fast that Jack can practically hear the bones in his neck cracking.

“No,” Dylan says a little unconvincingly, and takes a wobbly step back.

“Don’t fucking do that,” Jack says, and crosses his arms, hard. Just because Dylan is a beta doesn’t mean that he gets to crawl all over a strange omega without so much as a thought.

“Sorry,” Dylan says, and shrugs casually. “Just trying to figure out how a guy who looks like you got with an omega who smells like that. You reek of her.”

Jack stares. Maybe Dylan doesn’t remember that he’s an omega, which Jack finds hard to believe, because he’s pretty sure that there’s nobody left who doesn’t know after the hockey world lost its collective mind when he was named Captain of the WJC American squad and then promptly lost the tournament, supposedly proving what everybody has always said about omegas and leadership. It’s strangely plausible, though, given Dylan’s general level of obliviousness.

Or maybe he does remember and he’s just chirping Jack about his dynamic.

Jack actually hopes it’s the first one, if only because the other option gives him no choice but to send Dylan for a swim in gator infested waters, cameras be damned.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Hanny snaps, and this time, it’s him who steps in front of Jack like Dylan’s a threat, or something. “I don’t know how they do things up in Canada, but where I’m from, you don’t stick your nose in an O’s throat without being invited first.”

He says it loudly, too, and the boat goes so quiet that Jack can actually hear the click of Dylan’s throat when he swallows. Marner is looking at all of them with his mouth open, and then Connor McDavid ambles over, which is just fucking perfect.

The last thing a tense dynamics situation needs is an alpha wandering into the middle of it.

“I didn’t know,” Dylan says finally, and then to Jack, “I thought you were like me.”

“Like you,” Jack repeats flatly, “as opposed to what, exactly? Inferior?”

“That’s bullshit,” Hanny says, before Dylan can respond. “Even if you didn’t know, or you didn’t remember, you shouldn’t have fucking assumed like that. Keep your nose out of other people’s dynamics.”

“I didn’t know,” Dylan says again, louder, “I didn’t mean anything by it,” and then Connor McDavid opens his fucking mouth.

“That’s enough,” he says, and he says it to Hanny, which rankles. Jack pulls himself up to his full height. He’s taller than McDavid, and he takes no small amount of pleasure in that.

“Why don’t you swing your knot in someone else’s direction,” he says to McDavid, flatly, and McDavid always has a strong scent—when Jack met him at the combine he took an involuntary step back from it, which he still resents himself for—but now he’s projecting it so strongly that the omega in Jack wants to curl away from it, or maybe into it, and he hates himself for that, too. He’s not going to fucking roll over just because an alpha—McDavid, no less—is standing within five feet of him and is angry that Jack can scent the emotion on him.

McDavid stares, like he expects Jack to fold under his gaze. Jack doesn’t even blink. He’s tired of it being his fault that people don’t think he’s an omega because he’s big and broad and strong and because he walks like he’s got a knot to swing his legs around and because betas are too scent-dumb to pick up what’s right in front of them. He’s tired of being asked about his heat schedule by all the teams that interview him. He’s tired of McDavid having the better biology, on top of everything else.

“He said he was sorry,” McDavid says finally.

“No, he didn’t.”

Hanny jumps in. “Why does it even matter that Jack’s an O, huh? Do guys in the CHL really go around sniffing everyone they meet? It’s fucking rude.”

“This isn’t your business,” McDavid says, to Hanny again, and then Jack scoffs.

“It isn’t yours, either!”

“How much will you pay me to eat a worm?” Crouse says suddenly and hopefully, a blatant attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Jack hopes they stopped rolling camera, at some point, but either way Jack doubts they’ll use this footage. Nobody wants to see the top prospects get in a dynamics-based brawl on a boat in the Everglades.

“I’m sorry,” Dylan says, but he says it to his sneakers. Jack doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t uncross his arms, and he doesn’t sit down. Not until Dylan looks up, right at Jack, and says, “I’m sorry. Really. It was rude, and I shouldn’t have—” He shrugs, looks over at Hanny. “I shouldn’t have done it either way.”

“Fine,” Jack says then. Hanny shrugs, too, and looks away. He’s never held grudges like Jack has, but then, he’s never had to.

McDavid’s still posturing. Jack reaches out and claps Dylan on the shoulder, mostly because he knows that it will annoy McDavid, to touch his person when he’s still so territorial and wound up about the whole thing. “We’re cool,” Jack tells Dylan, “just fucking ask next time, or you’re gonna get yourself laid out, and I don’t need a knot to do it, either.”

He’s only half joking, but Dylan smiles a little awkwardly and then wanders away, which gets McDavid to follow him, at least, to try to get Crouse to follow through with the worm. Jack collapses next to Hanny and leans into him, just until Hanny gets the hint and throws his arm around Jack’s neck.

“Sorry, bud,” Hanny says into his ear. “That was shitty.”

Jack sighs, heavily. Marner has the snake around his neck and is grinning like he’s just won the lottery, and Crouse is fucking eating a worm, and McDavid’s laughing like Jack can’t smell him still all the way across the boat. “I really don’t want to be here,” he says, and Hanny gives him a squeeze.

…

Apparently, Jack can’t even get ice for himself without being cornered in the little vending machine room.

He smells McDavid before he sees him. McDavid always smells… not bad, just strong. Stronger than any alpha that Jack’s ever met, and he’s met his fair share.

“Hey,” McDavid says a little awkwardly, when he sees Jack standing there with his ice bucket, and Jack is struck—not for the first time—with how unfair it is that a kid as unassuming as McDavid presented as an alpha while Jack’s stuck struggling through his heats every few months.

“Hi,” Jack says flatly. McDavid’s holding a dollar bill so crumpled that the vending machine won’t take it. Jack watches him struggle for a minute, then holds out his hand. “Let me.”

He straightens it out on the corner of the vending machine, and then steps back to let McDavid punch in the right buttons when the machine lights up and takes the money.

“Wow,” McDavid says, and watches a pack of Reese’s fall.

Jack rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, “that’s my party trick.”

He picks up his ice bucket and turns to go, and that’s when McDavid says, “hey, Eichel.”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to apologize. For earlier.”

Jack’s so startled that he actually turns back. McDavid’s pink in the face, but he’s looking in his eyes, at least. “You don’t have to apologize for your boy,” Jack says finally, “he already did that.”

“Yeah, I know. I meant more for…” He shrugs.

“Oh,” Jack says, “you mean because you’re an alpha asshole and you acted like it, too?”

It’s probably not the safest choice, to prod at an alpha like this in a tight space, but Jack’s not sure he cares. He kind of wants to see how far he can push before McDavid pushes back.

There’s a brief moment when Jack thinks he’s reached that point: he’s hit by a wall of scent and McDavid’s eyes flash and then—the plastic candy wrapper crumples in McDavid’s hand, and he takes a deep breath. Jack hopes his scent is filling up the room like McDavid’s is, because he can hardly breathe.

“I deserve that, I guess,” McDavid says finally. “I’m usually better. I’ve been… it’s hard, in a new place like this. With new people.” _With you,_ is what he means. With a strange, unbonded omega. With someone he feels like he has to preen for, or maybe mark as his territory.

“Biology is a shitty excuse to act like a knothead,” Jack says, “do you know how many alphas use that shit to make it seem like they have the right to bully around the rest of us?”

“Yeah, I…” McDavid says, and then shakes his head, hard. “I’m sorry. Again. I just. I came to ask you something and I’m doing it all wrong.”

_Fuck._ Jack doesn’t know what McDavid wants to ask him, and most of him wants to keep it that way.

“I just wanted to make sure that you have an… arrangement,” McDavid says, and Jack can feel his face flush, because it’s what alphas ask when they know…

But that’s not. That’s not even possible. “My heat isn’t until July,” Jack says. It can’t be. They aren’t always clockwork-regular, but he’s never off more than a week. And no matter what McDavid thinks he smells, or sees, or wants… he’s getting drafted the day after tomorrow. He’s not fucking going into heat between now and then. He won’t let himself.

McDavid opens his mouth. He closes it. “My mistake,” he says. “I just thought. Sorry. I was wrong.”

“Whatever,” Jack says.

“But if—” McDavid says, and then shakes his head, hard. “Okay, right. Sorry. I just wanted you to know, you know. It’s the draft. I get how important that is, you know? And I… I just want you to know that I’d do anything to help. If you need it.”

“My heat’s in July,” Jack repeats. “And, by the way, I’m going to make a complaint to whoever teaches health at Erie High School, or wherever you and Stromer went, because you both have some seriously twisted concepts of what’s appropriate to say and do with an omega who you don’t know from Adam.”

He’s pretty sure that McDavid apologizes again, but he’s already pushing out of the vending room with his ice bucket.

…

Jack wakes up an hour after he goes to sleep, and he stares at the ceiling blearily and takes a moment to register why he’s sweating under the covers and why his thighs feel so slick and why he woke up at eleven p.m. and then…

And then his eyes tear up, a little involuntarily. He’s throbbing and sweating and he’s in heat and it’s so fucking unfair.

“Fuck,” he says, into the dark, empty room, and then he says it louder. “Fuck!”

He rolls out of the wet spot he’s created in his sleep, tries to breathe through the buzzing under his skin long enough to think.

He’s been through enough heats since he was fourteen that he knows the drill, now. He could get by with just himself—but not before the draft. He can’t be like this tomorrow or the day after. He has to be better tomorrow for more media shit, and he definitely has to be better the day after for the draft itself. None of the other prospects are here yet. If they were, Jack might be able to call someone he knows better—Zach, maybe. He’d do it if Jack asked, at least right before the draft. But he’s not here.

Hanny would help if he could, even, but he can’t. He’s a beta. Jack doesn’t have his toys, or his pheromone spray, or even one of the shirts Gryzzy sometimes loaned him for heats that smelled enough like alpha to push him through quicker on his own or with a beta. The only time his heat has ever ended the next day, it was because he took a strange alpha home and let the guy knot him.

He doesn’t have anything.

He doesn’t have a choice.

He rolls over and gropes for his phone in the dark, and then he searches for the number that the PR people made him program in his phone the first day.

_Does ur offer still stand?_ He texts.

…

Connor McDavid shows up at his door in pajamas, hair standing up on one side like he just woke up. Jack doesn’t feel even a little bit bad.

“You better have fucking condoms,” he says, once he’s checked the peephole and opened the door. McDavid spends a minute looking at him.

Jack doesn’t know what he looks like, but he knows what he feels like. He doesn’t have porn-heats like the ones where the omegas cry and present and gag for a knot. He doesn’t go out of his mind, or anything. He mostly feels hornier than usual, by a lot, and overwarm and crankily impatient and so, so empty. But also, he’s aware of everything. He sometimes wishes he wasn’t; it would be less embarrassing that way, probably, because he might have the excuse of being heat-dumb, but he never gets that bad. He’s fully capable of making his own decisions when he’s in heat and of living with them afterwards.

It sucks.

“Aren’t you on…” McDavid starts.

“Yeah, obviously,” Jack says. “Still. I’m not popping out kids for, like, twenty years. Especially not yours.”

“Yeah, I have some,” McDavid says. Jack turned one of the bedside lamps on, while he was waiting and biting his lip and not touching himself. It throws enough light for him to see the way McDavid’s pupils blow out, when he steps in and closes the door behind himself.

“Jack,” McDavid says. He doesn’t move from the little entryway, even when Jack falls back onto the bed, squirming a little at the feel of the sheets against his skin. He’s in his boxers, because the rest of his clothes were too warm to wear.

“You promised,” Jack says, and regrets it immediately, at least until it makes McDavid come closer and stand at the end of the bed. He does have condoms—three or four that he drops onto the sheets. Jack can’t even chirp him for being so optimistic.

“What do you want?” McDavid asks. Jack rolls his eyes.

“What do you think?”

McDavid shrugs a little helplessly, and then trails a finger across Jack’s bare ankle. Even that little touch makes him shudder, goosebumps rising even as the blood rushes to his face, his chest. He tends towards flushed at the best of times, and he can’t help thinking of how red his face must be, like this.

“I don’t know,” McDavid says finally. “I’ve never…”

“Jesus God,” Jack says, and throws an arm across his face. “Are you a virgin?”

“No,” McDavid says, a little defensively, “I’ve just never helped someone through a heat before.”

Jack pulls his arm back to look down the bed at where McDavid’s still standing uselessly. They lock eyes, for a long moment.

“Just tell me what you want,” McDavid says finally, earnestly.

“Just…” Jack says. “Just touch me?”

McDavid reaches down immediately, takes Jack’s ankle in his hand more firmly, this time, and it’s not really what Jack meant, but. It helps.

“More,” Jack says. “I need you… I just. I need you, okay?”

“Okay,” McDavid says, and he crawls up the bed then, knees between Jack’s legs where they’ve splayed half-involuntarily. He puts one hand high up on Jack’s thigh right where his boxers are riding up, the other in the center of his chest. Jack arches to get closer to him. “Like this?”

Jack whines, frustrated. “You promised,” he says again, and slides a hand under McDavid’s t-shirt. His skin feels almost cool again Jack’s hot palm. He tugs at the shirt, reckless, until McDavid pulls it off. “You promised.”

“I don’t know what you want,” McDavid says helplessly, and Jack nearly tears up at it. He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to take the lead. He just wants it to be better.

Jack touches McDavid’s neck then, in the back where his hair’s cut neat and short for the draft. Some alphas don’t like that, but he doesn’t seem to mind—he bends closer when Jack tugs him down. Their bare chests meet and it feels like a relief, like cool skin and like his alpha pressing closer and weighing him down and Jack settles, a little. McDavid’s scent is always so strong, but it’s more like this, up close. Jack presses his nose into the crook of McDavid’s neck when he finally relaxes his body weight into Jack, and he can tell that McDavid is hard, at least. He might not want Jack, specifically, but he’s not immune to an omega in heat.

“Is this better?” McDavid asks.

Jack can practically taste the pheromones on his tongue, McDavid is projecting so strongly, and then he opens his mouth and presses his wet lips to McDavid’s pulse and he _can_ taste it, then, deep and rich and he shudders and nods, a little, but it’s still not enough.

“More,” he says a little mournfully, and he presses his hand down the back of McDavid’s pants to get at more bare skin. “McDavid.”

“Connor,” McDavid says, and pushes back a few inches, and Jack is very unhappy about it. “Will you call me—?”

“Will you take your pants off, then?” Jack snaps, “Connor?”

Connor huffs, then, and his mouth is close enough to Jack’s throat that it makes him shudder. It might be a laugh, or frustration, or… but he does pull back, then, which makes Jack squirm a little until Connor works his pajama pants over his hips and knees and feet and then reaches for Jack’s boxers and helps him with those, too.

“Oh, wow,” Connor says, when Jack kicks his boxers off. He’s so wet he can feel it between his own legs and it’s embarrassing and yet Connor’s looking at him a little dazed, mouth open, and that’s almost enough to make Jack feel like he’s something approaching desirable.

“Connor,” Jack says again, and it’s gratifying that Connor leans back over him immediately, at that. That he’s listening.

Jack touches him again, his throat, this time, and cants his hips up, which might be dirty pool, but he doesn’t really care. He locks one leg around Connor’s waist to pull him back down, guides Connor’s nose into his throat. Connor groans when he settles between his legs, and it gives Jack the chance to grind up against him, get a little relief for his hard cock, even if it’s not where he wants Connor the most.

“God, Jack,” Connor says. “You smell so… all week, I haven’t been able to get away from it.”

He tongues at Jack’s neck, then, mouth open enough that it jolts Jack from the fog in his brain, a little. “If you bite me, you won’t fucking live to see the draft.”

Connor gentles his mouth, kisses him once there. “I won’t,” he reassures. “Jack, I wouldn’t.”

He keeps one hand on Jack’s throat, thumb pressed in to his rabbiting pulse almost hard enough to bruise, and reaches the other down to where Jack’s legs are spread wide, heels locked behind Connor’s back.

“Yeah, please,” Jack says, “I need—”

“Okay,” Connor gentles. His first finger is tentative, a little soft. He circles Jack’s hole, presses in, just testing.

“Connor,” Jack says, and kicks a little petulantly at him, because it’s not enough and it’s not fast enough and he doesn’t need an alpha to do anything for him, never fucking has and never fucking will. He reaches his own hand between them, down until he can nudge Connor’s hand out of the way where he’s still rubbing gently at Jack and press two of his own fingers into himself at once, sigh a little with the pure relief of it.

“Let me,” Connor says, and circles Jack’s wrist with his hand, but Jack doesn’t want to let Connor pull his fingers away. He can’t be empty any longer, and he says so.

“I know,” Connor says, “You won’t be. I’ll take care of it, please let me take care of you, Jack.”

Jack does let Connor pull his wrist back, reluctantly, and then he squirms until Connor slides two of his own fingers in where Jack’s hole is throbbing. His fingers aren’t bigger than Jack’s, but the sensation is better. Jack settles, almost in spite of himself, lets his thighs fall apart until they ache and reaches up to touch Connor’s lips with his fingers still covered in slick.

“Jack,” Connor says, and catches them with the tip of his tongue and closes his eyes. Just like Jack hoped, it spurs him to give Jack a third finger, sliding it home just as he opens his mouth, closes his lips around the pads of Jack’s fingers.

“God,” Jack says, and cants his hips up almost in spite of himself. He’s so full now and it’s not enough, won’t ever be. That’s what’s so frustrating about his heats, mostly: he takes and takes and takes and never feels sated. “I need…” But he can’t finish. He doesn’t know what he needs, not really, not beyond the obvious.

He needs whatever Connor can give him.

“Let me taste you,” Connor says then, pleading, and Jack thrashes his head against the bed.

“You are,” he whines.

“I know, you taste… let me taste you, please.” He presses one of Jack’s thighs back towards his chest with his free hand, opens him even more. Jack should feel vulnerable, and he does, but he loves it. He wants Connor to look, and to want, and to take. Connor slides down onto his belly and Jack whimpers a little, half afraid that Connor will pull his hand back again, leave him empty and gaping where his fingers are stroking at Jack now, nudged up against his prostate, gentle and shivery and good.

The first touch of his tongue sends a shudder through Jack’s spine, leaves him writhing on the bed. He makes a high little broken noise in the back of his throat, something that he would have laughed at, if he’d heard it in porn.

He’s not laughing, now.

Connor licks into him, around his fingers where they’re still stretching Jack open, tentatively at first and then with more confidence, and Jack fists his hand—still damp from his slick and from Connor’s mouth—into Connor’s hair so hard that it must sting. Connor doesn’t seem to mind, just makes a sound in the back of his throat that reverberates through Jack’s body and makes him shiver again.

It’s so much. Jack should have tried to get off once before Connor even showed up, probably, except that he was afraid it would make his heat spiral, because now…

“I’m gonna come,” he blurts, breathlessly, and Connor pulls his face back to look up the flushed planes of Jack’s body.

“You should,” he says. They both know he’ll need to come again tonight, anyway, and again and again and again. “Make yourself feel good, Jack. Come for me.”

He slips the tip of his fourth finger in when Jack fists his own cock, red and aching, and lets his head fall back into the pillow. Connor doubles down, uses both hands to spread Jack wide and then suddenly his tongue is inside, too, and it’s so much and that’s it. Jack barely has to stroke himself, coming in pulses across his chest.

Connor lets him breathe there, pulls back and noses at the crease of Jack’s thigh where his scent is especially strong. He leaves his fingers in Jack, keeps him full, and Jack’s grateful that he doesn’t have to ask. His face is wet and it might be from tears, but he’s not crying through his heat. He’s not. He refuses to be that O.

“More?” Connor asks, after a moment, and Jack’s breath catches in his throat when he answers.

“Yeah,” he says. _Always._

“Okay,” Connor says, and bows his head again, sucks a kiss right at the edge of Jack’s hole. “Okay.”

Jack comes again like that, Connor’s face buried between his thighs, his fingers buried in Jack’s hole. It doesn’t really take the edge off—it makes it worse, if anything, and Connor seems happy to go for a third and Jack’s sure his body would oblige, but he’s still hot and achy feeling and he knows he needs more.

“Connor,” he says, and tries not to encourage him by pressing back into his mouth. Connor hums against him but doesn’t pull back, classic heat-dumb alpha, and so Jack takes a deep breath and then says, “Connor, please. Come here, let me scent you.”

It works, like he knew it would. Connor sits back, looking dazed, face pink and wet, and then he rocks forward, drops his weight back onto Jack and settles there. “Like this?” He asks, and Jack shakes his head furiously, because he’s empty now and he hates it.

He bites his tongue before he can whine, _alpha._ He says just, “Connor,” instead, and squirms against him until Connor reaches back between them.

“Sorry, sorry,” he soothes. Jack tilts his face into Connor’s neck, breathes deeply.

It’s nice, for a moment, but he can’t stop the way he’s moving against Connor, little jolts and presses of his hips asking for more, asking for what he knows he’s still going to need and still going to get.

“You want me to get a condom?” Connor asks, and Jack nods and lets him go, as best he can when his instincts are screaming at him to cling to his alpha.

Connor fishes at the end of the bed for one of the condoms he dropped there earlier, and Jack takes the chance—the distance, however slight—to roll over, bury his face in the pillows that are saturated with Connor’s scent, now, just because he’s been in the room all night.

Connor touches his lower back, tentative. “You want it like this?” He asks, and Jack thinks of all the sappy movies where the couples knot face to face, all tangled up together and scenting each other the whole time and how the O starts to purr before the alpha even pops a knot, and he swallows and nods and keeps his back to Connor.

“It’s better for the knotting, like this,” he says. “More comfortable.”

“Your heat,” Connor concedes, and there’s the crinkle of the wrapper as he slides on the condom and then his fingers are back at Jack’s hole, for a bare moment, and then his cock, instead, bigger and blunter and more welcome. It’s so easy for him to slide in.

“Jack,” Connor whispers, and presses his palm to the back of Jack’s neck. It should feel dominating, suffocating, but it just feels warm and safe and Jack arches his back, presses into Connor.

There’s a hint of resistance, when Connor presses all the way in, and Jack exhales shakily when he realizes that it’s Connor’s knot, already half full, just from having his face between Jack’s thighs.

“Sorry,” Connor says, when they both feel it, but Jack doesn’t care. It’s agonizing when Connor pulls back, even if it’s just so he has the leverage to slide home again. He’s so hungry for it. He doesn’t need the friction; he just needs to be full.

“Stay,” Jack whispers, and reaches behind himself to touch at Connor’s thigh. He comes again, when Connor reaches around to palm his cock, hardly needs the stimulation at all.

He’s wrung out and oversensitive and yet when Connor settles over him after his own orgasm, Jack relishes the feel of Connor scenting at his neck, the fullness of his knot. He might come again, like this, before Connor can pull out.

He comes back out of the worst of the heat fog slowly, as they settle together tipped onto their sides. It takes a moment for them to find a comfortable position, but they do, eventually—legs tangled together, Jack’s head pillowed on Connor’s arm.

Connor slings the other arm over Jack’s waist and keeps trying to talk until Jack shushes him. “You’re ruining the endorphins,” he murmurs, and Connor quiets at that.

It might be nice, if it wasn’t so fucking inconvenient. Omegas are supposed to enjoy their heats—maybe Jack will, one day, when he doesn’t have to worry about hockey or about someone bond-biting him and when he’s settled with an alpha for real. Right now, they’re mostly a nuisance.

Still, Connor’s nestled against him, and the skin-on-skin contact is comforting. Jack thinks about this, sometimes, about what he might do next year on a team where he doesn’t know any of the alphas well enough to let them take care of him when his heat is coming up.

It was never sexual, with Zach, but he used to let Jack curl up to his side in the few days before his heat hit, to take the edge off. Gryzzy, too, at BU, or he would lend Jack a shirt or pillowcase that smelled like him, enough like alpha to take the edge off a solo heat.

This is nicer even than that, though. Jack’s loathe to admit it, but having an alpha close—an alpha knotted up with him—makes things better. His heat will break tonight, probably.

“How did you know?” He asks, finally, when the haze of heat and a knotted orgasm has faded a bit and he’s starting to get bored just lying there.

“You smelled louder, yesterday,” Connor says, and presses his nose to Jack’s neck, inhales deeply. Jack doesn’t want it, he doesn’t, but for a moment he almost does—the bonding bite, the solid way Connor’s teeth might feel in the back of his neck, they way their scents would mingle and everyone would know. His heat must be stronger than he thought. He’s never felt like this before, not even with the other alpha. He’s never been this needy. “I mean, you always smell… strong,” Connor continues, “but it was worse yesterday, and especially last night. So I figured it was coming.”   

“I hate this,” Jack says lowly, into the pillow, and Connor flinches back. “Just… that this happens to me,” he clarifies, and presses back, minutely. “That I can’t control it. This wasn’t even supposed to happen until next month. I would have planned better.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor says softly, and tightens his arm around Jack’s chest, pulls him closer. It rocks them together where they’re tied, and Jack’s eyes fall shut. He’s getting hard again, and it almost hurts, even through the heat.

“Fuck!” Jack says, angry.

“Sorry,” Connor says again, “here, let me.” He reaches down, cups Jack’s half-hard dick, and even that light sensation makes Jack shudder and jolt.

“Are you gonna?” Jack asks. Some alphas do, come more than once when they knot. The last didn’t, and made Jack feel like it was his fault, afterwards.

“I don’t know,” Connor says, but he’s a little breathless. “Maybe. It feels like…” he trails off, hips moving almost experimentally, and the sensation makes Jack squirm back against him, driving him closer to the edge. It sends a fresh wave of heat through him—a new pulse of slick, the flush rising back to his skin, and probably another rush of pheromones, too, if the way that Connor groans and opens his mouth again Jack’s throat is to judge. “Yeah, I’m going to,” Connor says.

It’s soft when Jack comes again, shuddering and almost dry. Connor gentles him through it, crooning like alphas do on the edge of knotting when they have an omega spread under them in the worst kind of dynamics porn. Jack can’t even hate it, it feels so good, even better when Connor tenses against him, coming again.

“You did this to me,” Jack murmurs a little nonsensically, but as soon as he says it, he knows its true. The way Connor smells to him, the way he was posturing all over yesterday and projecting his dominance, and then being trapped in the little room with him and his pheromones earlier tonight—of course Connor McDavid sent him into heat early. Of course he did.

Connor stills behind him, but they’re still knotted together and Jack’s so wrung out that he can’t summon up the outrage he probably should at the revelation. He tilts his face into Connor’s arm, instead, into the closest part of him Jack can scent. He’s going to need it again when they wake, probably.

Connor touches his hairline, brief and soft. “You should sleep,” he says. “You need the rest.”

There’s a purr building in his chest, low and involuntary. Jack sighs, and closes his eyes, and lets it roll through him.

…

Jack wakes up alone so early it’s still dark out. His heat’s broken, he can tell right away, but he’s still hard and still slick and he still needs to come, wring the last bit of it from his system.

His bed is cold and reeking of an alpha who couldn’t be fucked to stay.

He bites his fist and reaches between his own thighs and doesn’t think about what it all means.

…

He’s been up for hours by the time he has to meet the rest of the group for breakfast and he still procrastinates going for as long as possible. He’s through his heat now, almost entirely, but he still feels like he’s on the tail end of a fever—achy and groggy and chilled.

He should have taken a second shower, too, probably, because when he sits down, Hanny—even with his scent-dumb beta nose—turns and immediately gives Jack a scandalized look.

Then he takes in the dark circles and the way Jack’s wearing a sweatshirt in June in Florida and says, “Oh, Jack,” a little sympathetically. Jack just shrugs, because he feels like he deserves a little sympathy. Also, Hanny’s good people. The first time Jack had gone into heat on the road with the national team, Hanny had threatened to sleep in the hallway outside Jack’s room, as if there would be a strange alpha wandering the hotel who would break in and mount him, or something.

And then Connor McDavid comes in, thirty seconds before the PA person babysitting all of them would have threatened to go hunting for him, and Noah says, “Oh, Jack,” again, but with a much different intonation this time.

“It’s the draft,” Jack says miserably to his plate when he’s certain that Crouse is distracted. “Hanny. You know I had to. It’s the draft.”

Hanny continues to look quietly scandalized, but he doesn’t say anything else. Not until he nudges Jack’s knee under the table and whispers, “Is that why he was so late?”

Jack shrugs, hard. “He left in the middle of the night,” he says. “I was sleeping. I didn’t see him this morning.”

“Did you ask him to go?” Hanny asks uselessly, because they both know Jack would have never, not when he was in heat. He gets clingy, and it’s unattractive and was always grounds for endless teasing back when he wanted to sit on Zach’s lap all week approaching his heats and Jack wishes he could change it about himself, but he just blames it—like most other things—on biology.

Jack shrugs again.

“Motherfucker,” Hanny says, and Jack tips into him and stares at his coffee mug and doesn’t say anything else and lets Hanny’s clean, neutral scent block out the worst of McDavid’s.

…

Jack spends most of the morning pointedly avoiding McDavid and also pointedly giving bitchy answers to the media every time McDavid’s name comes up and subsequently receiving pointed glares from his agent and also the NHL PA person and also from McDavid himself.

But all the anger he couldn’t summon up last night has suddenly appeared, and so he doesn’t really care. Also, he still feels like shit, and has to keep ignoring the way that his body has very much not gotten the message that he hates McDavid even more than usual, now. It sucks.

Zach rolls in around noon with some of the other prospects, and either because he’s an alpha who probably smelled Jack’s post-heat all the way from the airport or because Hanny told him—maybe both—he slides up to Jack where he’s scrolling moodily through Instagram on one of the lobby couches almost as soon as he sees him, and throws an arm around his neck.

He smells very good, and it helps, a little, to soothe the part of Jack that’s still feeling injured that he woke up without an alpha to scent when he needed it the most.

Unfortunately, he still doesn’t smell as good as McDavid, who’s across the lobby ignoring Jack almost as determinedly as Jack’s avoiding him. Jack can still scent him, even over Zach. He really fucking wishes that his heat-dumb fucking hindbrain didn’t still think that being knotted over the counter by McDavid for a quickie during the rest of their lunch break sounds pretty fucking tempting.

“Sorry I wasn’t here last night,” Zach says, and Jack leans his head onto Zach’s shoulder and absolutely does not notice the way McDavid puffs up when he sees it, like he’s going to come over and challenge Zach about it, or something. He deflates after a long moment, anyway, and then laughs woodenly at whatever Stromer is saying.

Jack’s never really thought about Zach during heat, not seriously, even though he’s absolutely hotter than McDavid. Still, in hindsight, he would have been the much better choice.

“Me too,” Jack sighs.

…

Jack’s not the highest omega to ever be drafted, but he’s up there. He’s the highest in a decade.

People always ask him if he’s proud of that. Mostly, he wishes he didn’t have to care.

Mostly, he wishes it didn’t mean that he has something extra to prove.

…

Jack texts Larks about it, after the draft. He doesn’t have a lot of other Os he can talk to about this stuff, and Mac doesn’t really know McDavid that well.

Plus, Larks is guaranteed to already know, since Zach does.

_Does McDavid smell really strong to u?_

_Not more than anyone else,_ Larks replies. _Congrats, btw!_

_On?_ Jack asks, because he’s an asshole.

Larks sends back a little number two ribbon, and then, because he’s also an asshole, an eggplant followed by a fist emoji.  

_Thanks,_ Jack replies.

_Does he smell strong to u?_ Dylan asks.

_So strong. Like I think he sent me into heat early strong._

Dylan sends three eyeball emojis, and Jack rolls his own.

_Not like that,_ he says. _We’ve all seen that hallmark movie, and no. Doesn’t mean anything._

_Ok,_ Larks says. _Whatever u want to tell urself. Sorry it hit at the draft tho, sucks when it surprises you._

_Yeah,_ Jack says, and then because he knows it will piss Dylan off, _wish Zach had come up early, u kno? Would have taken him over McDavid._

_Fuck off. Sorry McD’s being a knothead tho._

_Yeah,_ Jack says. _Should have known. They all are._

…

It’s a year and change before it comes up again—at least, before it comes up when Jack’s not heat-dumb and lonely and desperate.

It’s a thing because of their supposed draft rivalry, but its mostly a thing because… Team North America has more As and Os than just them, but not by much. And McDavid’s his captain, now, which invites all sorts of badly disguised questions about dynamics and leadership and what it means that McDavid’s in charge.

He smells the same as ever—just as strong, just as good. They’re scheduled to do an interview, and McDavid sidles over while the camera people are fucking around, looking almost shy. “Hey,” he says. “I, uh. How have you been? You’ve been good?”

“Fine,” Jack says flatly, and tries to breathe through his mouth.

“You’ve looked good,” McDavid says. “I mean, on the ice. You’ve looked good. Playing hockey.”

“Okay,” Jack says. McDavid’s looked better. McDavid got nominated for the Calder, and Jack spent that week on his back, anyway, holding his teammate’s fucking T-shirt to his nose like it would help.

The interview is stilted and awkward and miserable. The last question is for McDavid, about how it feels to see Jack again.

“It feels great,” McDavid says, like he’d rather be walking to the guillotine, “Jack’s such a great player, especially for an O. One of best I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to play with him instead of against him.”

Even if it weren’t the last question, Jack would have walked away.

…

“Eichel,” McDavid calls after him, once Jack gets his mic off and storms away. “Jack!”

He’s jogging to catch up, and Jack wouldn’t stop for him, but McDavid grabs his elbow and pulls him around.

“I’m sorry,” McDavid says. “I’m… it came out wrong. I didn’t mean—”

Jack rolls his eyes, yanks his arm back. “Whatever, McDavid. It’s not exactly breaking news. Omegas are treated like shit in professional sports. I’m shocked. Alert the press.”

“I never say the right thing around you,” McDavid says, miserable. “I get so… I meant you’re one of the greatest players I know, full stop. I meant that I think it’s so impressive that you’ve overcome—not because you’re an O, just because of the way other people are about it and because they make life hard for you. That’s what I meant to say. I just. I’m sorry. Again. I feel like I’m always saying that to you.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Jack says stiffly. “You never did know how to treat an O. I should have known after last time. Who leaves an omega in heat?”

“I thought that’s what you wanted!” McDavid exclaims, “You said you hated your heats, you said it was my fault, and you were right. I assumed you didn’t want me there, after.”

“I woke up alone,” Jack hisses, “I woke up alone and empty and it fucking sucked. I hate my heats because they’re uncomfortable and inconvenient and you were the only thing making it better and you fucking left me there alone. I know you were only doing me a favor, but you could have followed through.”

“Doing you a favor?” McDavid asks, incredulous. “Do you know what you smell like? What you… Jack, that night was—I know you’ve been with other alphas since, but I haven’t… I can’t even imagine going through heat with someone else. I think about it all the time. I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s wrong to think of you like that, but I can’t make it stop.”

Jack swallows, hard. He doesn’t think Ryan putting up with Jack crawling into his lap for his heat-week every few months counts, not the way Connor means it, but he doesn’t want to admit it, either, that he had to tell the front office to forget about finding him a professional heat-mate because he can still taste Connor in the back of his throat every time it hits. “You could have had more,” he says instead. “You could have stayed.”

“I know,” Connor says. “I know that now. I hated myself, afterwards. Hallsy read me the riot act, when he found out.”

“Good,” Jack says, “I’m glad someone did.”

“Are we gonna be okay?” Connor asks softly. “I mean. For this tournament, at least?”

“My heat’s not until November,” Jack says, even though he knows that’s now what he meant, “but I said that last time, too.”

“Oh,” McDavid says, and his eyes drop to Jack’s throat like even the word ‘heat’ is enough to make him think about scenting. “So maybe I should stay away, then. Just in case you were right before, and it was me.”

“That’s going to be tricky,” Jack points out, “seeing as we’re on the same team, now. Besides, I’m on stronger regulators, now. The team has to plan around me, you know.”

“Find you a heat-mate,” Connor says, and wrinkles his nose.

“I do it myself, mostly,” Jack admits. Connor’s scent changes, intensifies, and it makes Jack a little fuzzy; it’s the younger, more annoying cousin of going heat-dumb. “But I guess if it does happen,” he says, daring, “I know someone who can help me through it.”

Connor swallows, hard. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” he says, and he’s pressing himself to the wall opposite Jack like he has to hold himself there with pure willpower.

This is so dumb. They’re in the hallway, and Jack got burned so badly, last time, and he’s buzzing and getting slick and he doesn’t even want to think about what this might smell like to anyone else who might wander through. It smells like foreplay, to him. He tips his head back against the wall, a little, exposing his throat. “Why not?”

“I think I want too much,” Connor says, voice rough. It makes Jack brave. “I think I want… more from you than you realize.”

They didn’t even kiss, last time. It’s all Jack can think about, is how much he wants to try.

“I don’t know,” Jack says. “I want a lot of things. I want to know why some Os like going through heat. I want to know what it’s like when someone stays the night. I want to kick your ass for last time, and I kind of want to try again. But maybe without the leaving, this time.”

“Oh,” Connor says, and reaches for him, hand to Jack’s throat. Jack presses into it, briefly, and then steps back, and Connor makes a beautiful, broken sound.

“We’re in public,” Jack points out, and grins. “I guess it’s true, what they say about you As. Can’t keep it in your pants, can’t control yourself. Think you can put an O on his knees before you even buy him dinner.”  

“I’ll buy you dinner,” Connor says, “I’ll buy you anything you want. Do anything you want.”

Jack hates being an O, except when he doesn’t—except when he has an alpha in front of him, asking for anything that he can give.

“Don’t worry,” Jack promises, and touches Connor’s hand, just briefly, before he turns to go. Connor shudders, Jack knows without even looking, because he can scent it in the air. “I’ll make you work for it.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Does_ _ur_ _offer still stand?_  

Connor gets the text in the terminal of the Edmonton airport, the team waiting listlessly to catch a late flight to California. It jolts through him near instantaneously—partly a throw-back to their first time, partly a clever chirp aimed Connor's way, but mostly a real signal, a real answer to what Connor had proposed at the World Cup when he'd finally screwed up his courage to apologize after months of lying in bed, staring at Jack's contact information.  

 _If you need someone to help you... you know, I'm happy to do it. Anytime._  

He's suddenly blindingly hard, mouth watering at the phantom scent in the air. Across the room, Leon's head jerks up and around, his eyes narrowing, focusing in on Connor a little knowingly.  _Seriously?_ He mouths, and Connor shrugs.  

 _Really?_ He texts back,  _right now?_  

His phone is quiet for a moment. Then:  _yes_ _right now. U know I wouldn't fuck with u about this._  

 _Sorry, sorry,_ Connor texts back, and then stands, holding his coat across the front of his body a little self-consciously. More of his teammates look up and wrinkle their noses as he crosses the waiting area, so. He's probably not being super subtle. 

"Um," he says, when he pulls up in front of coach. "I need... to go?" 

"You need to go," coach repeats dubiously. 

"It's..." He takes a deep breath, and then says more firmly, "yes, I need to go. I'm taking an emergency heat leave." 

"Oh," coach says, understanding dawning. He won't be any happier about Connor leaving, but it's a CBA protected right, so fuck it. "Lower body injury, then. Be back in touch as soon as you're ready to rejoin." 

Connor nods distractedly, already pulling his phone back out. His teammates call a smattering of goodbyes at him as he walks by. They all know, that there's an omega somewhere who he goes to for heats. Only some of them know who, although he suspects more of them are figuring it out as they play the Sabres more often, match up the tantalizing way Jack smells across the ice with the pleased, fulfilled way Connor knows he always smells after a heat leave.  

 _Connnnnoooorrrrr_ _,_  Jack has sent him.  _I can go find Factor n sit on his knot instead..._  

 _No, don't you fucking dare_ _,_  Connor texts back before he can stop himself, half-growling as he pushes through the crowd to find a ticket agent. He knows it's an idle threat, but it doesn't make it much easier to tamp down on his instincts. 

 _Lol,_ Jack says, because—predictably—he's getting off on riling Connor up, on poking at his dynamic weaknesses.  

 _I'm already at the airport. I'll be there as soon as I can._  

 _That was quick,_ Jack says after a moment, and then, an instant later, three eye emojis. 

 _We were about to fly out on the team plane,_ Connor explains, craning his neck anxiously around the line in front of him. He must be tapping his foot or actually growling out loud, or maybe he just stinks that much of alpha sex pheromones or something, because the woman next to him is glaring pretty obviously.  _Already here. Just rebooking flights. Be there ASAP, promise._  

 _U could walk, might be faster,_ Jack sends, and Connor smiles fondly as the lady waves him up to the counter. Jack gets—in his own words—bitchier as his heats drag on, which Connor finds inexplicably amusing. By the time he gets there, Jack's probably going to be fucking pissed at him for taking so long.  

There's a flight through Toronto with a short-ish layover, or he could drive when he gets there, if the mood strikes. No seats left in first class, but maybe that's better, anyway, if he's traveling incognito, and the plane leaves in twenty minutes. He books it, handing over his credit card thoughtlessly.  

 _Booked a flight, be there soon._  

 _Not soon enough,_ Jack says.  

 _I left you a shirt last time I was there,_  Connor texts. The boarding area is full of restless people, milling around while the airline boards first class. He's sweating under the collar a little, still aroused long-distance, but he doesn't stand out, much. Hopefully nobody looks too closely at him.  _It's in a plastic bag, under your bed. Put it on for me._  

 _Bossy,_  Jack says,  _i_ _f_ _it's a team Canada shirt I'm fuckin burning it heat or not._  

 _It's not,_  Connor promises, needlessly, because he's sure Jack's already found it, Connor's game-worn captain's jersey from the World Cup. Jack's already worn that jersey, once. Connor's sure that fact is not lost on him.  

They're boarding his zone now, and he's going to spring for the in-plane wifi, but he has to turn off his phone until they're at cruising altitude, regardless.  _Boarding now,_ he sends before he gets a response.  _See you soon._  

He hesitates, then follows it up with a heart, which feels riskier than it seems like it should.  

He settles into his seat, next to an older man and across the aisle from a college-aged girl, a beta, by the smell of her, who keeps eyeing him. Maybe it's because he's clearly jittery, obviously aroused to the nose and to the eye, too, hard in his suit pants for all that he's trying to keep his coat across his lap. Maybe it's because he's Connor McDavid, flying coach out of Edmonton in the wrong direction the night before a game.  

He tunes out the flight attendant and her safety information, background noise as he checks his phone one last time before switching on airplane mode. There's one single red heart waiting in his inbox, and he can feel himself blushing.  

The thing is... the thing is. They're not, like, dating. They've met up for heats three times now, since the World Cup. Connor's not sleeping with anybody else, and he doesn't know about Jack but he knows that he's Jack's only heat partner, and that means something to him. He's not sure what it means to Jack.  

Dynamics are a fraught topic between them and for Jack, especially. Connor doesn't know how it feels to be an omega in this league; he's not going to pretend to know how it is for Os in general and for Jack specifically. He spent a lot of time on dynamics-based websites and message boards and forums, after he fucked up so badly the first time—reading about dynamics and relationships and stereotypes, and how non-dynamic relationships could work or how dynamic but non-traditional relationship could, and... he's not going to pretend like he has all the answers, and he and Jack haven't talked about a relationship or about anything but the next heat, really, but. It's something he thinks about.  

And Jack is, for all his other faults and quirks, unfailingly and brutally honest with Connor, always. He's not shy about telling Connor when he's fucking up or acting like an alpha asshole or when Jack needs something, be it space or just a knot to work out his heat on.  

They hit 10,000 feet and Connor scrambles to pull his phone out of his pocket, pay the exorbitant wifi fee and impatiently wait for it to connect. When it does, the messages buzz through all at once. 

 _Jesus Christ you smell so good_  

 _I wore this jersey when I rode u last time, don't think I forgot_  

 _F_ _uck_ _connor_ _I'm so wet for u_  

 _I'm so empty, don't know how much longer I can wait_  

It wells up in Connor so fast—a fresh wave of heat, of arousal—that he practically drools with it before he can catch himself. He's sexting on an airplane, and he doesn't even care. 

 _Fuck, Jack. Please wait for me, I'll make it worth your while, I promise._  

His phone buzzes again, a photo this time. Connor swears under his breath—it's not explicit, really, except for how it is. The selfie is horribly angled but it's also of Jack in Connor's jersey, his face flushed, curls wild and pupils blown out. Connor knows it's not real, not possible, but he swears he can almost scent it on the air just looking at him, the way Jack smells in heat, indescribably delicious and more enticing than anything—anyone—else he's ever scented.  

 _Fuck, baby, you look so good,_ he sends.  _Can practically smell you from here. Are you touching yourself?_  

He's squirming in his seat. The woman across the aisle is definitely still judging him.  

 _W_ _hat do_ _u think?_ Jack sends, which is less than helpful, because Connor's mostly trying not to think about it, for his own sanity.  _My fingers aren't enough, Connor. U should buy me a toy for next time._  

 _Fuck, Jack. Do you have one of your toys out?_  

 _Yeah, but u should buy one for me. When you make me wait next time I could pretend its u. Something big._  

The flight attendant asks him if he wants something to drink, probably. She says something, anyway, and he hastily blacks out the screen of his phone, says distractedly, "oh, no, thank you." He feels thirsty, parched, but not for water.  

 _Are you going to get yourself off before I get there?_ Connor sends once she moves on. He half hopes the answer is yes, but he suspects that Jack will wait, which makes him feel warm in ways he'd rather not look at too closely.  

 _No,_ Jack says.  _I'm so hard, but I'm waiting. U know what would happen if I don't._  

And Connor does know. The last time Jack's heat hit when they were apart, it happened overnight—instead of easing in like he's doing now, he'd woken up in the throes of it, aching and wet and unable to wait. He goes wild, when he comes the first time, needing it over and over. By the time Connor had met him—in San Jose, that time, halfway through the Sabre's west coast swing—Jack had been practically inconsolable. It's not Jack's favorite memory, even though Connor remembers the weight of him over his lap, the way Jack had mouthed at his neck and mewled for him, with no small amount of fondness.  

 _I know, babe,_ Connor says. When Jack's distracted, in heat, Connor can get away with endearments like that, sometimes. He tried it once when they were both apart, texting like normal, and Connor had practically felt the distain from a continent away.  _I'm sorry. I wish I was already there._  

 _M_ _e too,_ Jack says.  _Thinking about u._  

 _About what? My knot?_  

 _Y_ _eah._ _Also_ _about_ _ur_ _mouth._  

 _Fuck,_  Connor says, because now he's thinking about it, too. About the way Jack tastes in heat, his perfect scent intensified over Connor's tongue, the way Conor's face and lips get wet with him. He thinks about eating him out during the playoffs, sometimes, how it might stay in his beard later, Jack's scent lingering for other people to know, to sense on him.  _Yo_ _u want me to eat you out or suck you off?_  

 _D_ _o I have to choose?_  

 _No,_ Connor says, and the timing works out perfectly because they're descending, now, and so he has just enough time to screw up his courage and send,  _you can have anything you want, Jack,_ before he turns off his service. 

 _…_  

"Thank fucking God," Sam says, when he opens the door. He's not actually plugging his nose, but his face suggests that he might like to be.  

Connor doesn't know if he could understand why. He can scent Jack through the whole house, of course, but the warm, rich smell of the heat—he can't remember anything better, can't imagine anything better. 

"Hi," Connor says a little dumbly, already looking past him, trying to edge into the hallway. Sam rolls his eyes. 

"Up the stairs, on the right," he says, unnecessarily. Connor's only been here once before, but if he were blindfolded he could find Jack in seconds, given the chance.  

"Thanks," he says, distracted, and then holds out the grocery bag that he picked up on the drive down, instincts warring with his arousal when he stopped to pick up the groceries and Gatorade and other supplies for Jack. As much as he wanted to be here as soon as possible, he wanted to do it the right way, too, make sure he had what he needed for the next few days.    

"I'll put it in the fridge," Sam says, grudgingly obliging as most betas are, "just, please? He's been like this for hours, man." 

Connor has to take the bag back from Sam to root around in it for the condoms. It's highly embarrassing, and Sam is definitely going to tell Jack about the alpha-driven supply run, when he's broken through the heat later.  

Except... Jack's not immune, either, to the way their dynamics can influence them, like this. When Connor bursts through his door, he's nested up on his mattress in what looks like every pillow and blanket in the whole house, naked except for Connor's jersey, curled up in the safe place he's made for himself.  

If Connor thought the rest of the house smelled tempting, Jack's room is so much better, saturated with his scent. He looks even better than he smells, though, flushed and naked from the waist down, a hand tucked down between his legs. If Connor had to venture a guess, he has three or four fingers tucked into himself, or maybe one of the toys that Connor hasn't bought him.  

Yet. 

"Hi," Connor says softly, crawling over him. He's still wearing his suit, he's just realizing now. He never had the chance to change on the flight out west. 

"You're here," Jack says. He reaches up and wraps Connor's tie around his fist, pulls him in close.  

"Sorry," Connor says, and leans in a little hesitantly—Jack doesn't always want to kiss him, but he does, now, parts his lips for Connor to lick in between, opens his plush mouth. He feels so good, warm and wet, a hint of what's to come.  

"Need you," Jack says, when he finally lets Connor pull back.  

"I know," Connor says, "me too. I've been hard for, like, three hours." 

"Yeah," Jack says, and rolls his eyes, "that must have been so trying for you." 

Connor has to stand to take his suit off—he never realized how many pieces of clothing it involved, before now. "Take off the jersey," he says, as he's unbuttoning his white shirt.  

"I like it," Jack says, propping himself up on one elbow. 

"You don't need it," Connor says, "I'm here now." 

"Then come here," Jack says, petulant but without fire. "Take it off me, if you want it off so bad." 

"Fine," Connor says. This is one of the moments that Connor's learned to love—Jack's not an omega who's going to roll over for him easily, and Connor likes that more than he can say, likes being challenged and pushed and likes needing to work to win him over.  

But Jack wants him to take the jersey off, and Connor's happy to oblige.  

"Sit up for me, baby," Connor says. Jack makes a face—maybe at the pet name, maybe because it means he has to slip his fingers out of himself—but he does, eventually, lets Connor peel the jersey off of him, soaked through with both of their scents now. He tosses it to the corner of the room, for later, makes a mental note to tell Jack not to wash it for a while. "What do you want, Jack? Tell me what you want?" 

"What do you think?" Jack says, and he's laying back now, smirking and half-preening. He likes feeling powerful, Connor's learning. He hates that his heats take something away from him, some sense of agency and control, and he likes being able to take it back, in the little ways. He likes knowing that he makes Connor hard, when he looks like this.  

"I think you want me to knot you," Connor says, "because you've had to wait so long. Because I've made you wait so long. And then, after that, after you've come on my knot, I think you want me to eat you out, and make you come again." 

Jack flushes, low and deep across his chest. He's so beautiful, Connor could cry. 

Or, Connor could kiss him. He decides to go for that one, instead. 

It's easy to get a hand under one of Jack's strong thighs, lift it back towards his chest. He's so wet after so long waiting, teasing himself; pink and open for Connor, hardly in need of any prep. Connor thumbs at his hole, kisses at his jaw. When he's satisfied that Jack's ready for him, he reaches for a condom. 

Jack rolls over. 

It's not that Connor's doesn’t enjoy the view, like this—the swell of his ass, the broad planes of his back—but he wants... 

"Turn over, baby," Connor says. Jack hesitates, for a moment. "You can ride me, if you want," he pushes on, "I just want... I want to see your face. I want to kiss you, when we're tied." 

Connor can count his heartbeats, it's so loud in his head. Finally, agonizingly, Jack turns over on his back. His face looks... Connor doesn't even know, can't even tell. Open, maybe, soft or fond. It's not an expression he recognizes from Jack, difficult to place but not unwelcome.  

"Fine," Jack says, and then his cockiness is back, a crooked grin on his face despite his flush, "if you want it on your back, we can do it your way."  

So Connor winds up on his back in Jack's nest of pillows, Jack's big hands pinning him to the bed. He's been in worse situations. Especially when Jack reaches behind himself, balanced on his knees, to line them up. Connor's been hard since Edmonton, started popping a knot as soon as he walked through the door tonight. He's resigned himself to knotting quickly, at this point, whenever he sees Jack in heat. He's past embarrassment. Jack's heats take almost as much out of him as they do Jack, it turns out, and it won't take much, now—they've both been on the edge for hours.  

"Yes," Jack sighs, when he bottoms out, blunt fingernails carving crescents into Connor's shoulders. 

He doesn't seem much inclined to move, but as welcome as his heavy weight is on Connor's lap, Connor needs the friction—he winds an arm around Jack's waist until he can get his heels under him on the bed, work his hips up into the tight clutch of Jack's body. Jack makes an expression like Connor's never seen before; beatific. It feels so good for Connor he can't imagine anything better, but judging from Jack's face, there's something that might be. 

"Oh, Christ," Jack says, and throws his head back—his pale neck is exposed, now, right in Connor's sightline. It makes his mouth water, makes him wonder... "Connor, I'm gonna..." 

And then he does come, face tensing, spilling over Connor's abs, and the tight clench of him sends Connor over, as well.  

He knots hard, core clenching up, head lolling back like he can feel all of the blood in his body rushing south. He needs a minute, afterwards, to recover from the pure physicality of it, head light and ears buzzing, and when he comes back, Jack's petting at him surprisingly tenderly, one hand in his hair and the other soothing across his collarbone, across the old scar there. 

"Thank you," Jack says, lips brushing against Connor's neck, tucked up high under his jaw.  

They breathe together for a moment, quiet after the rush of their knotting.  

"This is going to be hell on my hips," Jack says after their pulses slow.  

"We can..." Connor says, and it takes some doing, careful and slow, but they work their way down, eventually, lying face to face on the mattress.  

They can kiss like this, do kiss, and Connor takes more pleasure in it than he probably should. "Do you think it's ever going to stop being like this?" Connor asks, after a moment. The immediacy of the pull, back in the airport when he got that text, the urgency of it all, the phantom scent heavy in his nose—he's never experienced anything like it. There's an old wives tale, half a rumor, that someone who smells like that to an alpha, it means they're connected somehow, meant to be.   

Connor doesn't know if he believes it. He's pretty sure Jack doesn't, even though Jack watches the Notebook near-religiously, the classic dynamic love story. But Connor does believe in the way he feels like this, with Jack, even though it hasn't been long. He believes in the golden fan of Jack's eyelashes and the pink of his cheeks and the curl of his hair, and he believes in the slant of his mouth when he chirps at Connor's expense.  

He leans in to mouth at Jack's throat, gently, licking at the thin film of sweat gathered over his pulse point—salty and pheromone rich. Someday, Jack will have a bite there, probably, some alpha lucky enough to have won him over, claimed his heart.  

Connor's not going to lie and say he hasn't thought about it, that he doesn't think about setting his teeth there and biting down. But it's... useless, for now. He has things he won't give up, and so does Jack. There are things that Connor would never ask for, right now. Their future is distant and uncertain and Connor doesn't know anything except for how he feels right now, which is warm and sheltered and safe.  

"Connor," Jack whispers into his hairline. He's hard against Connor's abs, again, heat driving him forward, relentless. Connor wrap his fist around Jack's length, gently because he knows Jack trends towards oversensitive, heat or no. He can't bite, but he does suck hard, leaving a purple bruise on Jack's throat where a bond mark will live, someday.  

It makes Jack thrash and come in his arms, again, whining and digging his nails in.  

There's a moment of peace that follows, drowsy and quiet. Connor thinks about the Gatorade that he has down in the fridge, but he doesn't want to leave and go get it, or the fruit or the empty carbs he brought, either, although he can't deny that having the excuse to slip his fingers between Jack's lips is a tempting prospect.  

"Sorry," Jack says finally, and Connor smooths a hand over his back. 

"For what?" 

"Sorry that this happened again, so suddenly. My regulators are supposed to be better." 

"We knew it was coming," Connor says. "I don't mind. You know I like... I like doing this, for you. It's not exactly a hardship." 

"There's a chance that the next one will be during the playoffs," Jack says. It takes Connor a moment to decipher, because he says it mostly into Connor's shoulder.  

Connor thinks for a moment, thumbing at Jack's temple, the tight curls there impossibly soft. "You know I'd come, anyway," he says after a beat.  

Jack flushes even pinker, deeper than his heat flush and spreading up into his ears, over his cheeks. It's how Connor knows he's pleased, even if he'll never admit it.  

"I wouldn't want you to have to," Jack says. His team is not going to make the playoffs. Connor's will. It's not something that they've talked about. It's not something that they're going to talk about, probably, because Jack's understandably prickly about it. But. "I'm trying to plan around it, but. This one came a week early, so it's hard to know." 

"Jack," Connor says firmly. "I'd come anyway. There's nothing that would... If I was in Russia, I'd get on a plane. I mean, it would be a really long fucking flight, but. I'd get on a plane." 

"You'd get on a plane," Jack repeats flatly, and Connor holds his breath. Maybe this is when Jack tells him to go, tells him that he's got someone else or doesn't need anybody at all or doesn't need him in particular or, or, or... 

"I'd get on a plane," Connor repeats, and walks his fingers up the ladder steps of Jack's ribs, where he's breathing steadily, unmoving in Connor's embrace. 

"Would you sext me on a plane, again?" Jack asks, cheeky, face breaking into one of his wide grins.  

Connor grins back, helplessly. "I hope you know," he says, "the woman sitting next to me on that flight was reading over my shoulder the whole time, and judging me, hardcore." 

Jack laughs, loud and bright. There's a pile of clean laundry on his chair in the corner that Connor thinks a little idly about wearing before he goes back and leaving behind so that Jack has something, the next time. Maybe Connor will take the jersey with him, back to Edmonton, so that he has something, too. Something that smells like Jack, and like the two of them together.  

Jack's drowsing in his arms, now, in the quiet of the room, but he won't be for long. Connor's learning the rhythms of his heats, and he knows that Jack will probably wake him in the early hours to be knotted again. Connor can't bring himself to resent it. In fact, it might be his favorite way to wake up, to be nudged awake by Jack when he's flushed and desperate for him.  

"Get some rest," Connor says, and they're still tied together but he can feel his own eyes closing, too. He'll have to wake up before Jack does, take care of the condom and make sure there's a blanket for them both and make sure Jack's legs don't cramp up where they're wrapped around Connor and run downstairs to grab some food and electrolytes and hopefully dodge Sam on the way. He's looking forward to it, strangely. 

"Don't leave, again," Jack says, half a chirp. He's never going to let Connor forget that first time, but then, Connor doesn't want him to. He needs to have that accountability.  

"No," Connor says easily. "I'll be here when you wake up."  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops! I did it again. And by "it" I mean wrote this in one sitting while exhausted and a little wine drunk. Please excuse the typos.
> 
> (did i sit next to a guy actively sexting on a plane last weekend? yes. did it inspire this? .....no.)
> 
> Take only memories, leave only love and comments.
> 
> EDITED 3/24 to add: YIKES I kept going in the comments! All of that has been copy/pasted over to chapter 3 for ease of reading.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I went a little wild last night and kept going in the comment section and accidentally wrote like 3k additional words of fic--so this may look familiar, but it's been moved over for ease of reading! I've organized it roughly chronologically, but otherwise it was all RIPPED FROM THE COMMENTS so the grammar/tone/formatting is all over the place.
> 
> Y'all have been so incredibly lovely and generous with your time and feedback and I've had so much fun with this. Thank you--and enjoy!

[Me: just write like.... a little thing where they get to kiss

Also me: write like 4k more words of soft heat sex where they're maybe kinda falling in like but neither one will admit it but where Jack will finally ask for what he needs from Connor and Connor will fly across the country and miss a hockey game (A HOCKEY GAME) to oblige him.....]

…

Dylan texts him like "dude that's a long way to go for a booty call" and Connor's like... been let into Jack's soft little heat nest and Jack's napping all propped up against him with his mouth soft in sleep and his hair an unholy mess and Connor's arm is wrapped around his waist and he's just waiting for Jack to wake up and need him again and right now the Oilers are losing to the Kings and he keeps refreshing the box score but he doesn't really care about the hockey game for the first time in a long time and Connor's not thinking the word love but he's not NOT thinking it, either. And like, sure, it's a long way to go for a booty call, but maybe it's not such a long way to go for something like this--for something that could maybe be something and for something that feels like this, at least for him and maybe for Jack, too, if the way that Jack smiled at him before he fell asleep meant anything...

And he texts back "yeah lol"

...

[claudia_nic said: I'm already looking forward to pissy Jack because even though he tried very hard to avoid a play-off heat, that's not how things work.

And Connor being absolutely not bothered by it because A) they are in between rounds and he's not actually missing a game, just waiting to see who wins the yearly massacre also known as Game 7: Pittsburgh vs Washington in the second round and B) pissy Jack is one of his favorite Jacks anyways and he'd rather be trucked by Big Buff next round than miss being cooped up with his bae whenever he needs it.   
<3<3<3]

Yessss all of this!! And also:

In hockey, they don't say "I love you," they say, "I'd miss a playoff game for you," or maybe, "sure, I'm a little bitter that you're in the postseason but I'd still give anything if you could play it out without sacrificing that for me."

And also: "we've never really hung out, outside my heats," jack says, and like, he's just coming out of one now and Connor's leaving earlier than he would normally like because the second round series is just about to start and he's got to be there, but that doesn't make him feel all that much better about flying out before he's sure that Jack's good. Connor says something cautious, like, "would you want that?" and one thing leads to another and Connor winds up in Boston in July. It's hot, mostly. Jack burns in the sun before he freckles and Connor kind of wants to trace the edge of his tanlines with his mouth, but, like, maybe they don't do that if Jack's not in heat.

Spoiler alert: they do.

But also.... he triggers a heat again, half accidentally, somewhere in between all of their non-casual fucking in someone's too-cute cottage-themed airb&b. Whoops. "Doesn't this sort of defeat the purpose of the trip?" Connor asks. Jack's sitting on his knot, turned towards the foot of the bed reverse-cowboy style, which is good, because he would laugh if he was looking at Connor right now, the way he's propped back against all the pillows with one arm behind his head. Hey, he's resting. Connor can see where they're tied but maybe more importantly he can run a finger down Jack's spine, trace the faint constellations of freckles across Jack's broad shoulders. Jack had said he wanted an ocean view, while they fucked. Connor can't quite tell if he's joking.

"I don't care," Jack pants.

"I guess we'll have to try it again, sometime," Connor says carefully, "seeing each other outside of heat."

Jack looks back over his shoulder. His eyes are startlingly blue. "I guess," he says. "If you want."

…

The painkillers wreak havoc with Jack's regulators. He's already fucking pissed because of his weak fucking ankles, and he still hasn't texted Gryzzy back, even though he doesn't really blame him, in the end. He is texting Connor, against his better judgement. He lets Connor call him baby, both of them sober, and then regrets it, and then decides he doesn't care. Maybe that's what does it, some twisted placebo effect of Connor living in his brain.

He just calls this time. He only says Connor's name once into the phone before Connor gets it, soothes, "Okay, Jack, it's okay. I'm on my way."

In some ways, it's better than last year. Nobody's making the playoffs this year, so there's less guilt about pulling Connor away so often.

It's a long trip, but Connor turns up. He always does. Jack hasn't felt this resentful about the whole thing since maybe their first time, and it's awkward. He's hazy from his pills and practically immobile and he has to just lay there, on his back, booted foot slung over Connor's shoulder. Connor stops trying to talk after Jack snaps at him the first time, but it's... fine. They're close, pressed together and quiet. Connor keeps kissing wherever he can reach.

Jack drifts off, halfway through. It's a little embarrassing, but when he wakes up Connor seems unbothered. He's holding an ice pack to Jack's ankle, and there's fruit on the bedside table next to a full glass of water and Jack's bottle of pills. Connor must have talked Sam into handing them over, because Jack's not allowed to self-medicate.

"Hi, babe," Connor says, when he notices Jack's half-open eyes. "Half an hour until the next pills, okay?"

Jack nods. "What if it's always like this," he says, finally. He means, like, what if it's always so miserable, losing all the time and hurt and useless feeling and not making a difference no matter how hard he tries. Connor understands.

"It won't be," he says. "What if it's not? Always like this."

Jack's ankle is numb, which is a pleasant change from the throbbing. He's pretty sure Connor means, what if it's not always like this, with us? What if there's a time that Jack doesn't call, or Connor doesn't come?

"It will be," Jack says.

…

[saigerrr said: Omfg I loved this surprise chapter!! It was wonderful and I would definitely enjoy if you made this into something longer!!]

I keep ficcin in the comments, baby! Here you go:

Sometimes, Jack watches him sleep. Not, like, in a creepy way, but. There's been a lot of moments where he hasn't been allowed to look, so it's nice to, sometimes, without any snide remarks about going starry-eyed over the closest alpha.

Connor's got, like, this awful beard growing in right now, patchy and ginger. It scratches against Jack's thighs, against his ass when Connor eats him out. If Jack asked, Connor would probably shave, especially since there aren't going to be playoffs this year, but. He hasn't asked. It's not a horrible sensation. It's not the worst thing in the world.

Connor sleeps on his back with his mouth open, and he snores a little. Jack's slept through worse. He likes to touch but not cuddle--one hand or foot slung out, touching Jack when he drifts off. He sleeps hot, kicking covers off overnight.

Jack's on his stomach, head pillowed on his folded arms, eyes half lidded as he waits to drift off. He doesn't have time to turn away, to disguise that he's been looking, when Connor twitches and opens his eyes, says, "hi," blearily, then, "what?"

"Nothing," Jack says, "go back to sleep."

Connor blinks at him once more, then closes his eyes, turns his head the other way. "Okay," he says, and his pinky touches Jack's hip under the blanket.

...

[wait said: yeah this is bitchin keep it up 4ever]

Yassss don't stop this train! I've been thinking about, like:

Connor turns up on his doorstep, out of the blue. It's random. Jack has to just, like, blink at him for a while, because they've started doing more now, met up outside of heats a few times, but. Usually Connor tells him first, at least, when he's coming.

Jack's got boxes half-packed everywhere, the end of another disappointing season. He's pretty ready to get the fuck out of this city, which is probably why Connor's here, actually. He pretty much bolted out of Edmonton himself, going back to his Toronto condo for the summer. Still. The drive to Jack's place isn't long, but it's long enough to have time to text him.

"Hi," Connor says. "I wanted to catch you before you went."

"Um," Jack says. He's dumbfounded, and also Connor smells, like, incredible. Maybe it's really better than normal, or maybe it's just been a while since they've seen each other.

Connor's.... something is weird. He's twitchy and agitated and he keeps, like, pressing up behind Jack when he's throwing T-shirts in boxes and getting in his way trying to scent him. He wanders away to the kitchen and then comes back, furious.

"There's no food in this house," he snaps. Jack stares.

"Yeah," he says. "That's the point." Sam's already gone, and Jack's going tomorrow. There's not going to be anyone living here for months. "We can order in, if you're that hungry."

Finally, Jack loses his tenuous grip on calm. "Why don't you go on a walk," he says. It's not a suggestion.

Connor returns an hour later, shamefaced. Jack meets him at the door. "You're in rut," he says.

Connor says, "what." Ruts are, like, not unheard of, but. Extremely rare. Most alphas never do.

"I googled it," Jack says. "You're moody and aggressive and trying to nest, and you've got pheromones like woah. So either that, or you're pregnant, which seems unlikely. Have you been dicking around behind my back?"

"No," Connor says. "I'm... in rut. Okay." His eyes are half-glazed. It seems so obvious, in hindsight.

Jack, like, almost laughs. He doesn't, because that would be rude. He also doesn't say, 'now you know how it feels.'

They go up to Jack's room, which is empty except for the sheets still on the bed.

He's not being more aggressive than usual, he's just being... more than usual. Needier. Jack turns over, face down, so he can grin into the pillow. Connor can't stop touching him, hands all over his back. It's kind of nice, in a way--usually when it gets frantic like this, Jack's in heat. This is the first time he's been able to enjoy it, sinking into the contact and the pheromones without the haze of his own heat.

Connor comes quickly. There's a hint of teeth at the back of Jack's neck, and he shivers, and then says firmly, "no, Connor."

Connor whines at him, and then--licks, maybe. It's wet, but not entirely unpleasant. Jack snorts into the pillows, amused. "You're a mess," he says fondly.

Connor noses at the back of his neck. "I want to get you off," he says, mournful. "I wanna use my mouth." He's knotted, now, won't be able to move for a while, and Jack doesn't have the stamina to come as much as usual, now that he's not in heat.

"Okay," Jack says, and reaches behind himself to stroke at Connor's flank. "You will, I promise."

…

[wait says: i love out of control connor so much]

!!! Jack does, too! Like, what a fun change of pace!

Heat and rut aren't the same thing, and Connor's always been good with him. Understanding.

But, like, afterwards? Connor definitely gets it more. He knows, now, too. It's kind of a nice thing to share.

…

[kazer said: my favorite line was “He believes in the golden fan of Jack's eyelashes and the pink of his cheeks and the curl of his hair, and he believes in the slant of his mouth when he chirps at Connor's expense.” reminds me of my favorite quote ever from neil gaiman’s american gods. just. your writing is so beautiful thank you]

Thank you!!! Connor is SO SOFT for him! Sometimes on long flights he thinks about things like... Jack has this birthmark, right on his jaw. Connor thinks about biting him there, north of where a claiming mark would be. He doesn't, usually, but. He kissed him there, once.

He thinks about things like... there's a ticklish spot, right on his ribs. Connor thumbed over it once, accidentally, and Jack jolted and then giggled like Connor's never heard. He thinks about that sound, sometimes.

He thinks about, like. Jack's got these blue eyes like can't be believed. When he flushes, face pink, they look bluer still. When he wears a hat, backwards, or his blue jersey, they look. Yeah. When Connor gets the call, that's what he thinks about first, usually. How he's going to smell, of course, and how he's going to feel, but. First, it's how he's going to look, when Connor turns up and Jack's already waiting for him, naked in bed or wearing his shirt, pale skin flushed and eyes blue in his face.

…

[significantotters said: both of these boys were very sweet and very them. and their friends were all A++ as well]

Ahhhhhh!!! Y'all I'm happy and I got my wine on so let's have a baby ficlet:

Sam wonders sometimes what it would be like, to be dynamic. Not all the time, but. He thinks that probably a lot of guys in this league don't have to deal with Connor McDavid popping up on their doorstep a few times a season, just polite enough to give him a token hello before rushing upstairs. Probably also a lot of guys don't have to deal with Jack Eichel holing up in his room semi-frequently, nesting up with heat.

They don't talk about it a lot, but Sam has dynamic brothers. He doesn't  _know_ , but he gets it. He knows that it frustrates Jack, on top of everything else that he has in his life to frustrate him. When Jack's named captain (when, not if), it's going to be a first. So. He loves Jack a lot more than he's going to admit to anybody anytime soon—Jack tends to have that effect on people. He's Sam's best friend, and there's no shame in that, and no small amount of pride.

Sam's fine with keeping out of Jack's way when the heats hit and knocking on his door every few hours to give him enough time to pull his blanket over his lap before Sam goes in to refresh his water, at least until Connor turns up again, reliable as clockwork.

He sees them in the kitchen, one morning. It's not the first time Connor's been there, by a long shot. He's trying to make eggs, but Sam gets the impression that he's not much of a cook, if the way Jack's chirping at him is any indication. Also, Jack's wearing the blanket that should live on the back of their couch--a housewarming gift from Factor's girl--like a toga, and Sam's pretty sure he's naked under there, so he makes a mental note to burn that one, later on.

"Scrambled eggs should not be this hard," Jack finally says, and comes around to the stove, blanket trailing behind him. He looks something less than regal. He adjusts the heat and cracks new eggs into the pan, and Connor looks more pleased than he has a right to as he comes up behind Jack, hands on his hips.

"I guess you better show me, then," Connor says. Jack rolls his eyes and scoffs, but he's also too pink for Sam not to notice how pleased he looks.

All he wanted was coffee. It's far too early in the morning, for this bullshit.

…

[IContainMultitudes said: Did they bond? How? You did tease the idea, so the stage is set - now all you need to do is write it]

Bonding is like.... bonding is an after-hockey thing. So. Connor doesn't even think about it, really, he doesn't.

Like, he still holds babies like hand grenades, but he's pretty sure Jack wants seven. It's not something he's thinking about. Like.

If they were bonded, Jack's heats would be less frequent, but more severe. They've both got contracts, technically in different countries from each other, so. it's not something he's thinking about.

Like, he sees how happy his bonded teammates are--the ones with wives and kids at home. He can scent it on them, the bone-deep contentment he only catches glimpses of, when he's knotted up in Jack, mouthing at the back of his neck. It's something that he wants, with an intensity that he rarely feels for anything except hockey.

But.

It's not something that he's thinking about.

...

[claudia_nic said: I could totally do with a way far into the future one where they both have won a cup and Jack's kind of over all the 'oh look at Jack Eichel, he's doing so well representing omega's in the NHL' bullshit and decides that you know what, he's going to bond and have a baby with Connor and the entire NHL can have a nice long fit about it as long as the two (almost three) of them are happy. And they try to time it kind of rigth so it won't interfere too much with Connor's season, but things don't go as planned so Connor iunfortunately ahs to miss game seven of the Western Conference because you know- he's becoming a dad and Jack is not going to do this thing alone, goodbye Edmonton! And somehow, don't ask me how, Edmonton manages to rally and win that game without their best player on the ice, so they can go on and win another cup. Because Connor now is the proud owner of his own baby, which is not a grenade at all and deserves a 'baby in the cup' picture. Which it will get, even if Connor has to drag his entire team to 4 wins by their hair. Jack off course spends the summer following this happy event getting back into shape, bitching at Connor about babies being hell on your core muscles, making a million pictures of Connor with the baby, preferably while both of them are asleep on the couch and then goes on to win Buffalo another cup, because hello, Connor can't have more cups than Jack has. That would be totally unacceptable. Also, the baby is small enough to fit in another cup, so she gets not one but two sets of cup pictures. THE END]

THIS IS A D O R A B L E

(Connor can't have more cups than Jack has. That would be TOTALLY unacceptable).

Or like, Connor texts Jack once on the flight back to Edmonton. He's not counting, but it's been five years and four months. He's all:  _how many kids do you want? you know, someday?_

Jack:  _oh, we're talking about this now?_

They haven't talked about a lot. They haven't talked about, like, bonding or rings and definitely not babies.

Connor says something like...  _idk._ _i_ _guess._  Something casual. 

Jack doesn't send anything for a while, and then it's,  _how many for you?_

_Idk. Like. A few?_

Connor can picture the way that Jack's eyes are rolling, hard enough to, like, alter the space time continuum. He can feel it on the plane.  _Of course_ _u want a few_ , Jack says.  _U don't have to do any of the hard work, u A._

_Well,_  Connor concedes.  _How many for you?_

_Idk. Like. A few._

_Haha_ , Connor says. He's not, like, blushing, because that would be embarrassing, but. His cheeks feel warm.

_Ur_ _gonna_ _have to put a ring on it first, u know,_  Jack says.  _I'm a nice boy. U_ _gotta_ _treat me right._

Connor's pretty sure he, like, bursts into flames. Metaphorically speaking.  _Make an honest man out of you?_  He says. His hands are shaking.

There's a long silence, and he has to land and drive himself home, so he can't check his phone for a while. There are jewelry ads everywhere, suddenly, in the airport and on billboards. Pictures of wedding bands.  _If u think_ _i'm_ _taking_ _ur_ _last name_ _ur_ _McFuckin_ _dreaming,_  Jack's sent.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL. This was inspired by a comment on chapter 3, and I mean to put it there but it got way too long. Enjoy!

[lizloveslaughs said: Does Jack ever have to make any cross country runs because Connor goes into rut unexpectedly?]

Ooooh, I never thought of this. I guess I wrote it to be like a super rare thing, but wouldn't that just figure? Something like...

_I don't have anything in my house that smells like you,_  Connor texts, and Sam groans when Jack opens the message.

"You've got your Connor face on," he says, and pushes his way down to his usual seat on the plane.

_Give it 5 hours and_ _u'll_ _have me,_  Jack says back. Playing in Edmonton is never fun, for a lot of reasons, number one of which is that it's fucking Edmonton.

But also, Connor. So. 

It's a long flight. Jack plays cards, and loses money, and then takes a nap. When he wakes up to change back into his suit, Connor's texted back.

_I made you dinner. Please don't eat on the plane. Do you have curfew? When can you come? Do you need my address?_

"Chill," Jack says out loud, but he texts back,  _omw_ _, don't worry. Be there in_ _20_ _._

He catches a cab. He's only been to Connor's once or twice—usually the necessity of the situation is that they meet at Jack's place, or a hotel somewhere. Connor's house is, like. It's big, and mostly empty, and kind of sterile, like he handed someone a wad of cash and said 'buy a house for a professional athlete with tons of money and people to impress,' and the person forgot to buy a house for a real human being.

Despite the palatial foyer, though, it's definitely Jack's Connor who opens the door, warm and dressed in sweat pants and saying, half-panicked, "what took you so long? I thought you got lost." 

"We, like, just landed," Jack says, but he gives Connor a hug, anyway, and if he maybe scents at his neck, nobody has to know. Connor kisses him when he pulls back, just shy of too hard. 

"I made you dinner," Connor says.

"Yeah," Jack says, and strips off his suit jacket. "You said that, already. Are you okay? You're acting." He doesn't say,  _you're acting like you did that one time when you lost your mind and rutted._ He says, "You're acting weird."

Connor shrugs. Dinner is a lasagna, pretty blatantly store-bought; frozen and re-heated. He's a terrible cook, which they both know but don't talk about. 

Jack polishes off half his plate. It's kind of awkward, with how intensely Connor is watching him, but. He can almost always eat, so it's fine. Connor leaves once, to get him a glass of water, and then he's back, refusing to sit, leaning against his island and watching Jack eat again. 

Finally, Connor says, "can I hold your hand?"

Jack puts his fork down. He doesn't say most of what he's thinking, like,  _right now?_ Or,  _what the fuck?_

He sticks out his left hand, and says, "this one. I need the other to eat."

It's not the most comfortable meal that he's had. 

After, Connor clears his plates and then leads Jack into the living room and puts something mindless on the television. He keeps pulling Jack back into his arms, against his chest, until Jack gives up and just goes limp against him. It's not awful, but. He worries. Connor feels overwarm and his scent is vivid and more than usual, and then halfway through the show he starts palming at Jack's upper thigh, which he's usually shier about. 

But Jack, like, misses him when they're apart and hasn't had sex in months, so he's not mad about it, or anything. 

His curfew is looming, and Jack tries to sit up after the first episode, and that's when Connor says, uncharacteristically petulant, "do you have to go? Jack?"

Jack turns and stares. There's color high in Connor's face and he looks agitated and even now he's got a hand tucked into Jack's waistband, holding him close.

"Connor," he says carefully. "I think you're rutting."

Connor stares for a moment. "That's not," he says, "that's not really, like. Possible."

Here's the thing.

Like, Jack was a one-and-done and most people think he's dumb as rocks and most of those people are probably right. But. He's been struggling with his dynamic for almost half his life, now, and he's sought a lot of answers, and so he knows more about it than a lot of guys like him might.

There's this theory, out there. It's mostly psuedo-science, unproven, but there's this theory that when people are especially compatible, they can kind of fuck with each other. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but it makes them more susceptible, even if just by a few percentage points, to triggering extra heats or ruts.  

Jack knows that he heats more often than most Os. He goes five or six times a year, easy, and most others he knows have three or four. He's not dumb to the fact that it started after he and Connor began heat-partnering, but it's sort of a double-edged sword, because he didn't start going into heat more often until then, but Connor also makes the heats he does have easier. 

Once, early on, he heated in June. Connor was in Russia, and even though he said... Jack didn't call. 

Connor was about to win at his first Worlds, and Jack hadn't wanted to drag him away, and it was early, too, the fifth or sixth one, and Jack was resentful, wanted to prove that he didn't need...

He had a shirt and a toy and he hunkered down. 

It was bad. Longer than usual and more intense and just. Worse. 

And worst of all—they fought over it, long and hard. Connor found out, of course he did, and Jack didn't appreciate being lectured at, and they both said things they regretted. It wasn't the first time they fought, not by a long shot, but it was the first time that they fought since they became a they. 

The next time, Jack lasted forty-five minutes before he called, which was about forty-two minutes longer than he had ever lasted before. It was quiet, through the first time. They knotted back-to-front and impersonal, and Connor had put his forehead to the back of Jack's neck and sighed deeply and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say. I know you don't—I know you're strong enough to get through this alone. If you want."

And Jack had been facedown in the pillows, eyes wet, and had said, "what if I don't want?"

Anyway. The point is, that Jack's done a lot of reading about this shit. Alphas rarely rut once, but twice is. Well. 

"You've always been special," he says, only half-joking. Connor's cheeks are so pink that when Jack frames them with his hands, they go white around his thumbprints. 

"Oh, God," Connor says. 

"I'm going to call it," Jack says. He leans in to nuzzle, briefly, tide him over. "Go upstairs."

Connnor does, reluctantly. Jack calls his coach, and tells him he's in heat, because, like. Ruts aren't covered in the CBA, because they barely happen, so it's as close as he can do. Then he calls Leon on Connor's behalf, which is maybe the single most awkward conversation he's had in his life. 

Connor's waiting in bed for him, when Jack finally goes up after turning the TV and all the downstairs lights off. "I missed you," Connor says. 

Jack tries very hard not to grin. Connor's always been so good with him, with his heats and his needs and his bizarre requests and wants and urges. It seems wrong not to give him the same now, but, also... it's strangely gratifying to know that he's not the only one, who gets like this. 

"Yeah, me too," Jack says. He doesn't mean what Connor means, probably, because he pretty succesfully survived the ten-minute trip upstairs, but. They don't see each other that often during the season. A scent-soaked jersey can only go so far.

Connor's naked, but Jack is very much not. He starts in on the buttons of his shirt, but he's keenly aware of Connor staring and slows the process down until Connor growls, impatient. Jack grins. It's nice to know he can have that effect, still. 

It takes ages for him to push his boxers off his hips, let them fall to the floor. Even longer for him to crawl onto the bed, bracket Connor with his arms. 

"Hi," he finally says, their lips a breath apart. When Connor lunges up, Jack pulls back and anchors a hand in the middle of Connor's chest so that he has almost no leverage.

"Jack," Connor says. It might not be his favorite sound—that would be the goal-horn, probably—but it's up there.

"You're kinda easy for me, huh?" Jack asks, and sits back until he's nestled in Connor's lap. "Triggered a rut just thinking about me? Remembering what I feel like around you?"

"Jack," Connor says again. His hands squeeze around Jack's hips, hard, and Jack grinds back into him.

"What were you thinking about, babe?" Jack continues, working his hips, "knotting me? Scenting me?"

"Yeah," Connor breathes, twitching a little helplessly beneath it. He keeps licking at his lips, half-trying to taste the pheromones in the air. "Tasting you. Thought about eating you out, but like. If you were on top."

"Shit," Jack says, and reaches down to fist at his cock. When Connor whines and reaches for him, Jack pins his wrists together in his free palm, holds them tight. "Yeah, you want me to ride your face? We can do that, baby. After you knot for me, take the edge off."

"You gonna let me?" Jack says, "let me take care of you?"

Connor bites his lower lip. They're not, like. Especially dynamic, usually. Jack would lay out any guy that tried to put him on his knees or in his place, and Connor—off the ice and without his C—is steady and placid, the calm in Jack's storm.  

Still. It runs contrary to everything they should know, for Connor to lay back and take it, like this. Jack presses his thumb into Connor's pulse point, briefly, and Jack can feel his heart thrumming rabbit-fast in his caught wrists. "Let me take care of you?" He says again, falsely calm. 

Connor exhales, hard. "Okay," he says. 

Jack works himself open, fast and efficient. He lets Connor's hands fall, and Connor watches, touches, hands stroking over any skin he can find. The knotting goes fast, the first time, when Jack finally sinks down on him. Connor says something, too soft to hear. It sounds like a curse, maybe, or a plea. It's hard to tell. 

When Jack's in heat, Connor drunkenly told him once, it feels, like. Something close to fate. Like somewhere he's meant to be, something he's meant to do, something he's good at, bone deep: being there, when Jack needs him. 

Jack never really understood, until that first time Connor rutted. He's a little ashamed to admit he's thought about it, since, about it happening again. 

Connor's clutching at his waist, lips parted and wet against his neck. Jack's never felt so powerful.

Connor asked him once, after the Russia incident, "why are you so afraid to want me?"

He's the kind of guy that Jack should take home to his parents. They've met, before, but not, like. Officially. He's the kind of guy that Jack should be begging for a ring and for a bond, because, like, Jack's dumb, but he's not  _dumb_ dumb. He knows there are better Os behind him, in line for Connor, that deserve him more. 

But. 

When Connor asked, he had been tucked up against Jack. They hadn't been knotted, in between heat waves, but they'd been close. Connor had linked fingers with him under the covers, mouthed at the shell of his ear softly enough to make him shiver. 

"I'm not afraid to want you," Jack had said. The naked press of Connor against him had been. A lot. Close to triggering another heat wave, for sure. "I'm afraid to need you."

He thinks, maybe, Connor gets it now. He looks almost baffled, wide-eyed and still and letting Jack soothe him. Jack croons at him, softly, and Connor closes his eyes like he can't—can't handle it, can't handle Jack. 

Jack gets himself off, too, quick and ruthless with a hand on his dick. They're going to be here a while; he loops one arm around Connor's neck so that they can press together for the duration, so that Connor can nose into his neck. 

Connor drifts off, when they're still tied. Jack would wake him or chirp him, maybe, if he hadn't been there, too. Instead, he climbs off, gentle, and goes downstairs naked, collects water and snacks and pads back up. 

Connor's still dozing, spread-eagle on his back. Jack cuts his losses, climbs back into bed and curls around him to purr softly, until Connor turns into him and they both drift off again. 

…

"You're missing practice," Connor says. It's a hell of a way to wake up; Jack's had one too many nightmares about this very thing. 

Jack blinks at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he rolls over, presses back into Connor. "Yeah," he says, "that's the point."

Connor sighs, and then, like, scratches him, right across the belly. Not hard, or anything, but it makes him jolt and swear. "What the fuck, man," he says, muzzy with sleep. 

"You're gonna miss your game," Connor says, insistent, but he's already hard again. "You're gonna miss the game."

Jack rolls over to face him, a little irritated. He looks the same as always, but he's also flushed and frustrated and clearly still rutting. "You want me to play, tonight?" Jack asks. 

Connor looks like he might try to say yes. He's the type of guy that would. "You want me to go play hockey," Jack says, "you want me to leave you here, for hours, alone, and go play hockey with a bunch of other As."

So, Connor growls. Jack tries very hard not to gloat. He's not trying to be mean, or anything. He's... thinking about all the games Connor has missed for him, all the long flights and overnight stays and emergency calls in the night. He's thinking that maybe he kind of wants to return the favor, for once.

"No," Connor grinds out, like he's ashamed of it.

Jack kisses under his chin, soft. "Why are you afraid to need me?" He asks.  

Connor looks at him, like understanding is dawning, breaking through his rut—he touches Jack's waist, just a brush of fingers.

"I'm not afraid," he says. 

…

So the Sabres win but it doesn't count, because Jack's not helping. 

He's very much not helping. They spend most of the day and most of the night, too, tied together in Connor's cozy room in his big, impersonal house. 

It's quiet, mostly. Connor lets Jack feed him, once at midday and again in the evening, and Jack lets Connor press quiet, wordless noises into his body—across his shoulders and into his chest and over his jaw and cheeks. 

His team leaves town without him. 

The last morning, Connor has him on his back. He's sucked a vicious hickey high on Jack's inner thigh, and he's licking him out, slow and sure. Connor scents it first, the first wave of heat.

"Oh, Jack," Connor says, his gaze clear. His rut's ended, right on schedule, and Jack's heat has just started, very much not on schedule. 

He whines in his throat, helpless and high, and Connor grins at him, doubles down and holds him open and presses a kiss against his hole, too soft to satisfy.

"You're kinda easy for me, huh?" he says. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More comment fic..... sorry, my guys. Someday, I will stop doing this. I promise.

[lizloveslaughs said: I love that in this version alphas in rut get really clingy and over protective, instead of physically aggressive.]

Somewhere on the cutting room floor is like Jack reading up on ruts after the first time and there are all these stories online like "when my alpha rutted we knotted on the stairs because he couldn't wait" or like "it happened so quickly we had sex over the kitchen sink" or whatever and for Jack it was.... very much not like that.

I'm torn between it just being a verse thing and it varying alpha by alpha or maybe a little of both, like it just removes inhibitions more than anything. So like, it's almost scary that Connor is so sweet with him and so protective and so worried about crossing boundaries because that means like THAT'S HOW HE FEELS ALL THE TIME and that's a lot to look right at.

...

[Kenarik said: Would love to see them going through a rut/heat cycle at the same time. Feelings so magnified... Maybe during off season for your ease.]

OH MY GOD I kind of wrote myself into a corner being like 'alphas never rut lol' but what if I just rewrote that last scene where like... it's not after Connor's rut ends that Jack starts to heat.

AND THERE IS M A R A T H O N S E X

There is nothing but feeling, like, no words and no stopping for food or showers and barely stopping for sleep. It's just scent and bodies and, like, tasting each other and breathing hard and it all kind of passes in flashes and starts and then Connor like, jolts awake and it's not the first time he's woken up because Jack's seated himself on Connor's knot but it's the first time it's happened immediately post rut and it feels so fucking intense and good but he can also tell it's going to, like, hurt a little. He doesn't even want to think about the number of time he's came over the past few days, but Jack's still heating so he lets it happen. He can't help it--he adores him.

Jack's whole chest and neck is a wreck of marks. He's so pale, he bruises up so pretty. There's a particularly giant one on his jaw where Connor likes to kiss his birthmark and there's one where a bonding mark would go. Connor didn't actually bite him, but he's pretty sure it was a near thing, which, like, he feels bad about because he tried to bond Jack the last time, too, and Jack was sober enough to stop Connor but this time he's pretty sure it was just pure dumb luck.

Anyway. It was good, but all things considered Connor's glad it doesn't happen that often. Between the two of them it's usually so intense anyway that one of them being sober (so to speak) tends to help. Balance things out. Plus, like. Rutting is fine, but he kind of like Jack's heats, too, which he wavers on feeling bad about because he knows Jack doesn't really like them, but he likes the sweet way Jack smells and the flush that spreads down his cheeks and over his chest and even down his thighs and he likes the little sounds Jack makes and the wide black of his pupils and he likes that it's the only time Jack goes vulnerable for him. He likes that when Jack is at his neediest, it's Connor that he wants there with him when he could have anybody.

So, yeah, it's good when they hit together, more intense than it's ever been, but. He almost likes it better the usual way.

...

[claudia_nic said: We also clearly have to talk about this, because it is not OK!!!  
He knows there are better Os behind him, in line for Connor, that deserve him more.

I mean could you imagine Connor overhearing Jack being all deprecating about himself, telling someone that. Like he's sitting at home in Edmonton and he's watching the Sabres vs Pens and as usual Pierre McGuire sticks a microphone right into Jack's face the moment he leaves the ice and he makes a dumb remark about O's playing in the NHL and kind of implies that Jack is clearly not bonding material and instead of going on the offensive Jack just shrugs and says something stupid like 'oh you know, my alpha doesn't complain although I'm sure there a plenty of better O's around that would take better care of him'. And Connor just flips his shit, all stoic and silently for five minutes, trying to do the right thing, sitting on his couch in Edmonton, but than he decides that you know, this requires drastic matters, plus they have an off day tomorrow and he has no urgent plans. So he drives to the airport, flies into Buffalo, drives over to jacks and waits for him to come home so he can yell at him loudly and clealry about how wrong jack is. And then there will be making out and hot sex and Jack being all 'but you know it's kind of true ' and Connor being 'absolutely not you dipshit, you are it for me, start getting used to it'. And Jack wants to deny it, but he also is kind of preening silently, on the inside, because Connor flew all the way to Buffalo just to tell him he's awesome which is ridiculous, because you know, how is he ever going to live up to this doofus with his grande gestures and his steadfastness and his sincerity. jack might die trying, or he could just lean into it. And then, we all know they will live happily ever after. And there will be babies, that will go into cups. Take that Pierre!]

ALL OF THIS! I feel like (this is depressing sorry) I feel like a lot of Jack's personality and reactions and etc. esp. in this verse is rooted in a deep insecurity and feeling like he has to make up for things--his dynamic, going second--with attitude and pretending like he doesn't care so nobody knows how much he does. SO LIKE. He honestly can't fucking believe that Connor's in it for the long haul at first because, like... why would a guy like Connor choose a guy like him? Connor's a good A and a good hockey player and a nice guy and people like him. Jack is... a bad O and a good-but-not-good-enough hockey player and nobody's ever accused him of being nice. Jack resigned himself, like, years ago (after he came to terms with presenting, more or less) to not being any alpha's first choice, if he was anyone's choice at all.

He remains stunned basically on a daily basis that he still wakes up with Connor texting him or calling him or in his bed and seemingly happy to be there.

Not that he's not confident in some ways/at some times or that it doesn't get better when they get further along together but... shit like that doesn't go away, and it crops up again from time to time.

BUT YEAH I do feel like when Connor discovers this, as he inevitably does, he would be very much not happy about it. It's hard to watch someone you love hate himself.

(it gets better, though)

...

[badjujuboo said: I want the eventual after hockey love or the oops pregnancy scare... can jack have those? I want it alllll! Xxx]

A pregnancy scare would be like... probably Connor doesn't do a great job at hiding the fact that he kind of wouldn't mind it. Maybe they realize because they schedule a meet-up over their bye weeks and Jack doesn't heat on schedule and then he doesn't heat even after they spend a few days together which is like.... unheard of, after so long apart, and so it maybe means, like. You know.

Connor says the right things and goes to buy the test and everything but he's also kind of, like. Glowing. Unfortunately, Jack can't be that mad about it because whether it's his dumb primal hindbrain or just the fact that he really likes kids and really likes Connor he keeps kind of thinking that it might not be so bad.

That being said, OBVIOUSLY it's not the right time for a lot of reasons. It's kind of shitty that if this is a thing that's happening, it means that Jack is going to have to miss a fuckload of hockey and Connor will not. It also kind of sucks that Jack would basically have to do this alone, because Connor would not be missing hockey (Connor insists later that it would have been a discussion to have and Jack insists that it would have been fucking dumb for Connor to self-sabatoge a full season and also Jack was not moving to Edmonton for nine months so fuck that noise).

ANYWAY it turns out to be a moot point because the test is negative and Jack heats the next day, and Connor says all the right things but Jack can tell deep down he's a little disappointed, and maybe he kind of gets that, though he would never admit it. Like. For the half hour where he was thinking maybe, it was kind of a nice picture. It still makes him feel kind of bad when it puts that dumb, sad look on Connor's face. But when his heat breaks Connor kisses the inside of Jack's wrist and says softly, "something to look forward to," so things are okay.

...

[removedhergrace said: do they bond? In your conceptualization of this dynamic do bonded pairs have to spend all of their time together? or could they be bonded and continue to live apart? [picturing cute retired @ 40 connor & jack finally getting to settle down for the first time]

Ahhhhhh thank you for all of this!!! I kind of don't like the fuck-or-die-ish compulsory aspect w/ regards to this verse? So maybe bonding isn't like a compulsory thing. I guess I was thinking something more like marriage--maybe they're pretty much equivalent in this verse. Like, betas can't bond so they get married, and A/Os can bond so lots of them do that and don't get married, and some do both, and unless it's like a real traditional/bigoted type people pretty much count those things at the same.

So they could be apart, but I don't know that they'd necessarily want to bond before they can be together? Like, by the time retirement arrives they've been waiting so long that they maybe made the call that they just wanted to wait and do it right and be able to be together for a while after it happens. The honeymoon period. Also like a lot of people know because they do subtle like a brick through a window, but they're not like OUT and that would be big news, so might as well wait until nobody's going to take it out on the ice with them.

BUT THEY DO BOND AND IT IS GLORIOUS and then Jack's like "hey remember when I told you to put a ring on it? i wasn't joking" so they get married too because u know they're fucking extra.

...

[Pinkerton said: If you have any thoughts on how them bonding plays out I would sooooo love to know.]

I feel like it happens, like... casually but very much not, like most things they do. Probably post retirement. Maybe they settle down together wherever it happens for a while first--get a house, heat a few times. Feel it out.

Things get more predictable when they're together full time, in terms of Jack's heats. So maybe it's like one morning the day or two before he heats and he's drinking coffee in his sweatpants and no shirt and Connor's trying not to stare and Jack says, like, as he's leaving the room, like it's nothing, "do you want to do it this next time?"

Connor knows what he means, but he still follows him upstairs.

"What," Jack says, when he notices him. He's blushing, so he's not oblivious to the bomb he just dropped, but he's acting it anyway. They stare at each other for a moment, until Jack says, "do you not want to?" He crosses his arms. It's not a good time for Connor to notice how built he still is.

"Can we talk about this?" Connor asks. Jack's looking at his feet. His voice had trembled. He's trying to pretend like he's not as scared as Connor knows he is.

"Have we not?" Jack asks. And like, they have, sort of, generally. They both knew where this was going. They bought a fucking house together. Jack caught him looking at baby names the other night.

Connor breathes. "I want to bond with you," he says, as clearly as he can. "I don't care if it's tomorrow or five years from now. As long as it happens."

"Okay," Jack says, finally. "Okay, so. Tomorrow sounds good."

And the nice thing about being retired is that it's 10 a.m. and they have nowhere to be and so they're free to just like bone each other then and there. The bond won't take until Jack's in heat, but goddamn if Connor doesn't try. He's wanted to bite him, for real, for a long fucking time. Since the very first time.

So he does, and the bond doesn't take but Jack shudders and comes under him, so. It's good practice, for tomorrow.

...

[Mahlerman said: I would love to see what their relationship dynamic turns out to be like once they are in the end of their careers/retired!]

I feel like in most ways, it's more of the same... like things aren't rosy 24/7 but they're really, really good and sometimes actually living together they step on each others toes but it's also nice to like.... just roll over in bed when heat hits and know that Connor's right there for him instead of having to wait the torturous hours even when he knows that Connor's coming as fast as he can. Like, Jack can't really remember back to when he truly hated his heats, but now he almost looks forward to them because it's HOURS and DAYS of really fucking good sex and having his bondmate handfeed him grapes isn't that bad, either.

...

[GalaxyGirl 35 said: If u think about how protective Conner is of jack I general, and how much he just want to take care of him, how much Are those instincts going to increase when jack gets pregnant? Especially if he was playing when he found out or he decided to keep playing immediately after because “Connor, the baby is a bunch of cells rn. I’m fine for like another month and a half”.]

Jack: "Dude, I say this with love in my heart, but you have really got to chill the fuck out."

**Author's Note:**

> You know when you read a more-or-less throwaway line in a fic, and your trashy little McEichel heart perks up like... jilted? omega? Jack? Eichel? Who got... fucked and dumped by one Connor McDavid??? But you're also physically incapable of them not having a happy ending? So then you write 8,000 words of the weirdest, kinkiest smut you have ever written? Maybe that's just me. 
> 
> Also, the timeline on this re: real world draft is 300% off and I can't even be fucked. 
> 
> Many thanks to darkangel0410 for the spark that inspired this one. That fic--and all others by them--are A+
> 
> As always, will tag by request. Comments are love!


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